Page:Oppenheim--The cinema murder.djvu/200

190 "I was there for a few moments. I wrote my note to you in the box office."

She shook the memory away.

"And afterwards?"

"I went to one of the clubs down-town."

"What did you do there?" she enquired. "Gossip?"

"Some of the men were very kind to me," he said. "I had supper with Noel Bridges, amongst others."

"Well?" she asked, almost defiantly.

"I don't understand."

She looked intently at him for a moment.

"I forgot," she went on. "You are very chivalrous, aren't you? You wouldn't ask questions. … See, I am going to close my eyes. It is too horrible here, and all through Brooklyn. When we are in the lanes I can talk. This is just one of those days I wish that we were in England. All our country is either suburban or too wild and restless. Can you be content with silence for a little time?"

"Of course," he assured her. "Besides, you forget that I am in a strange country. Everything is worth watching."

They passed over Brooklyn Bridge, and for an hour or more they made slow progress through the wide-flung environs of the city. At last, however, the endless succession of factories and small tenement dwellings lay behind them. They passed houses with real gardens, through stretches of wood whose leaves were opening, whose branches were filled with the sweet-smelling sap of springtime. Elizabeth seemed to wake almost automatically from a kind of stupor. She pushed back her veil, and Philip,