CHAPTER XIV
It was a warm, still night early in May, and the electric light over the cabstand at the end of the Square cast on to the pavement and dusty surface of the dry roadway the elbowed and angular shadows of the still leafless plane-trees in unwavering lines, as if they were made of some dark marble cunningly inlaid into a grey ground. The dry seed-balls of last year still hung there, and the air was only just sufficient to stir them, so that they oscillated gently to and fro, swinging from side to side in the light breeze that was not strong enough to agitate the twigs and branches that bore them. But in other respects, apart from the merely atmospheric, two houses at least had evening parties going on, and at the end of the Square opposite the cabstand there was a dance, and rows of carriages and motors were employed in endless procession in unloading their occupants opposite the strip of red carpet that ran across from the curbstone of the pavement to the step of the house. The drawing-room window of No. 36, next door to the fortunate house with the carriages and the red carpet, was open, and in the window-seat sat two women. The talk had been intimate; it would be intimate again; but for the moment Lucia took it to the surface.
"Yes, it was just in this place," she said, "and just on such an evening, four years ago, it must be, that we sat and talked, Maud. And the Lewisohns were giving a dance next door, as they are to-night, and though it was heavenly to talk to you, I wished I knew the Lewisohns, and that they would ask me to their dances. And now that woman has left cards on me three times this year, and I have returned mine punctually next day. Here we go, up—up—up. That's me. And to-morrow I go down—down—down. What a bore it is! Of course it's delightful to be going to have a baby—at least everyone tells me so—but why couldn't it happen in February or March? As it is, I have to spend these precious weeks in the country. Edgar really is too absurd. He makes—positively makes—me go down to Brayton three weeks
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