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They were in the middle of the fun when suddenly they heard in the distance the "toot-toot" of a motor-horn, and, looking at each other in dismay, they realised it must be Auntie May come to fetch them. "We shall have to change first," gasped Isabel, as they hurried along the road. "I'm afraid we look rather messy!" Peter said nothing; he was feeling too miserable.
Birds, with ugly, tuneless notes that were not songs but cries, flitted in the trees, and the rumble of traffic on the road came up in the evening air, broken occasionally by the shrill persistence of an exhaust whistle or the clamour of a motor-horn, and above all other sounds the long-drawn, occasional hoot from a ship anchored in the river highway.
"She is a wise person, Tallie; wise, silent, discreet. And I find her looking well; but very, very well; this air preserves her. And how old is Tallie now?" she mused. Though she talked so sweetly there was, Karen felt it now, a perfunctoriness in Tante's remarks. She was, for all the play of her nimble fancy, preoccupied, and the sound of the motor-horn below seemed a signal for release.
The owner of Vendetta, having been congratulated by royalty, was taking some friends to admire the horse during the rubbing-down process, when his glance suddenly fell on Medenham. Though amazed, he was not rendered speechless. "Well, I'm " he began. But the Mercury possessed a singularly loud and clear motor-horn, and the voice of the Honorable Charles was drowned.
Or she might get one of her many acquaintances to come with her, some pleasant woman who would not talk too much, or too little. Fish! When, finally, some fruit had been put before her, and Murgatroyd and the footman had left the room, she remained so she thought of it like a mummy in the tomb which belonged to her. And presently through the profound silence she heard the hoot of a motor-horn.
Then "toot-toot" went the motor-horn as the gentleman in grey closed the door upon himself and his companion, and the vehicle, darting forward, sped down the Embankment in the exact direction whence the man himself had originally come, and, passing directly through that belated portion of the hurrying crowd to whom the end of the adventure was not yet known, flew on and vanished.
And there were one or two super-fanatics ranking ahead even of the fishermen and the sand-diggers who clung to that weird and changing region the whole year through. Medora Phillips' house was several miles beyond the worst of the hurly- burly. There were no tents in sight, even in August. Nor was the honk of the motor-horn heard even during the most tumultuous Sundays.
And when the hoot of Payne's motor-horn in the outer courtyard told them that it was time for Dermot to go, they said good-bye in the outwardly careless fashion of the Briton who has looked into another's eyes and found him true man and friend. Then through the darkness into the dawn Dermot sped away with his companions from the City of Shame and the Palace of Death.
The warning hoot of a motor-horn sent them scuttling to the side of the road, and, as Sandy smilingly watched the grubby little crowd's hasty flight for safety, a big green car shot by and was swiftly lost to sight in a cloud of whirling dust. But not before Sandy's keen eyes had noted its occupants. "Nan and the artist fellow!" he muttered.
Someone going somewhere! Someone who had something to do, somewhere to go! Someone from whom all the activities had not passed away for ever! The motor-horn sounded again nearer. Now she heard the faint sound of wheels. The car was coming down her side of the Square. The buzz of the machine reached her ears now, then the grinding of brakes.
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