We found ourselves in taxis, which for some in-scrutable reason are still allowed to ply practically unchecked in the streets of London. While eating and breathing and going about are permitted, we shall never be a really righteous race !

CHAPTER II

 

OVER THE TOP!

It was only about a quarter of an hour before we reached " The Dog " ; but the time passed heavily. I had been annexed by the white maggot. Her presence made me feel as if I were already a corpse. It was the limit.

But I think the ordeal served to bring up in my mind some inkling of the true nature of my feeling for Lou.

The Smoking Dog, now ingloriously extinct, was a night club decorated by a horrible little cad who spent his life pushing himself into art and literature. The dancing room was a ridiculous, meaningless, gaudy, bad imitation of Klimmt.

Damn it all, I may not be a great flyer, but I am a fresh-air man. I detest these near-artists with their poses and their humbug and their swank. I hate shams.

I found myself in a state of furious impatience before five minutes had passed. Mrs. Webster and Lou had not arrived. Ten minutes-twenty-I fell into a blind rage, drank heavily of the vile liquor with which the place was stinking, and flung myself with I don't know what woman into the dance.

A shrill-voiced Danish siren, the proprietress, was screaming abuse at one of her professional entertainers
-some long, sordid, silly story of sexual jealousy, I suppose. The band was deafening. The fine edge of my sense was dulled. It was in a sort of hot nightmare that I saw, through the smoke and the stink of the club, the evil smile of Mrs. Webster.

Small as the woman was, she seemed to fill the doorway. She preoccupied the attention in the same way as a snake would have done. She saw me at once, and ran almost into my arms excitedly. She whispered something in my ear. I didn't hear it.

The club had suddenly been, so to speak, struck dumb. Lou was coming through the door. Over her shoulders was an opera cloak of deep rich purple edged with gold, the garment of an empress, or (shall I say ?) of a priestess.

The whole place stopped still to look at her. And I had thought she was not beautiful !

She did not walk upon the ground. " Vera incessu paluit dea," as we used to say at school. And as she paced she chanted from that magnificent litany of Captain J. F. C. Fuller, " Oh Thou golden sheaf of desires, that art bound by a fair wisp of poppies adore thee, Evoe ! I adore thee, I A O ! "

She sang full-throated, with a male quality in her voice. Her beauty was so radiant that my mind ran to the breaking of dawn after a long night flight.

" In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, but westward, look ! the land is bright ! "

 

As if in answer to my thought, her voice rolled forth again :

" O Thou golden wine of the sun, that art poured over the dark breasts of night ! I adore Thee, Evoe ! I adore Thee, I A O ! "

The first part of the adoration was in a sort of Gregorian chant varying with the cadence of the words. But the chorus always came back to the same thing.

I a-dore Thee, Evoe ! I adore Thee, I A 0 !

EE-AH-OH gives the enunciation of the last word. Every vowel is drawn out as long as possible.