She sat in the front seat with her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her camel’s-hair coat. She had a black Zouave hat on the back of her head and a black belt round her waist. She was so good-looking that all the tears she had shed still left her attractive. She was not crying now. She tucked her chin into her scarf and scowled at the bus driver’s back. Her name was Brigid Carmichael. She was twenty-three and had been crossed in love.

The bus lurched up Ludgate Hill. Dr. Timothy Makepiece put down his book and leaned forward, stooping, to see the last of St. Paul’s. There it was, fabulous against the night sky. He experienced a sensation which he himself would have attributed, no doubt correctly, to a disturbance of the nervous ganglions but which laymen occasionally describe as a turning over of the heart. This must be, he supposed, because he was leaving London. He had come to that conclusion when he found he was no longer staring at the dome of St. Paul’s but into the eyes of the girl in the front seat. She had turned, evidently with the same intention as his own, to look out and upwards.

Father Jourdain was saying, “Have you ever read that rather exciting thing of G.K.C.’s, The Ball and the Cross?”

Brigid carefully made her eyes blank and faced front. Dr. Makepiece returned uneasily to his book. He was filled with a kind of astonishment.

At about the same time as the bus passed by St. Paul’s, a very smart sports car had left a very smart mews flat in Mayfair. In it were Aubyn Dale, his dearest friend (who owned the car and sat at the wheel in a mink coat) and their two dearest friends, who were entwined in the back seat. They had all enjoyed an expensive farewell dinner and were bound for the docks. “The form,” the dearest friend said, “is unlimited wassail, darling, in your stateroom. Drunk, I shall be less disconsolate.”

“But, darling!” Mr. Dale rejoined tenderly. “You shall be plastered! I promised! It’s all laid on.”