As the car drew up he lifted two leather
grips on to the step, and Mareno, descending, took charge of them.
"Come along, Mollie," said Kilfane, looking back.
Miss Gretna, very excited, ran out and got into the car beside Rita.
Pyne lowered two of the collapsible seats for Kilfane and himself, and
the party set out for Limehouse.
"Oh!" cried the fair-haired Mollie, grasping Rita's hand, "my heart
began palpitating with excitement the moment I woke up this morning!
How calm you are, dear."
"I am only calm outside," laughed Rita.
The joie de vivre and apparently unimpaired vitality, of this woman,
for whom (if half that which rumor whispered were true) vice had no
secrets, astonished Rita. Her physical resources were unusual, no
doubt, because the demand made upon them by her mental activities was
slight.
As the car sped along the Strand, where theatre-goers might still be
seen making for tube, omnibus, and tramcar, and entered Fleet Street,
where the car and taxicab traffic was less, a mutual silence fell upon
the party. Two at least of the travellers were watching the lighted
windows of the great newspaper offices with a vague sense of
foreboding, and thinking how, bound upon a secret purpose, they were
passing along the avenue of publicity.
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