XXIX. THE UNEXPECTED ANECDOTE OF THE LION

They rode on to Cosham and lunched lightly but expensively there. Jessie

went out and posted her letter to her school friend. Then the green

height of Portsdown Hill tempted them, and leaving their machines in the

village they clambered up the slope to the silent red-brick fort that

crowned it. Thence they had a view of Portsmouth and its cluster of

sister towns, the crowded narrows of the harbour, the Solent and the

Isle of Wight like a blue cloud through the hot haze. Jessie by some

miracle had become a skirted woman in the Cosham inn. Mr. Hoopdriver

lounged gracefully on the turf, smoked a Red Herring cigarette, and

lazily regarded the fortified towns that spread like a map away there,

the inner line of defence like toy fortifications, a mile off perhaps;

and beyond that a few little fields and then the beginnings of Landport

suburb and the smoky cluster of the multitudinous houses. To the right

at the head of the harbour shallows the town of Porchester rose among

the trees. Mr. Hoopdriver's anxiety receded to some remote corner of his

brain and that florid half-voluntary imagination of his shared the stage

with the image of Jessie. He began to speculate on the impression he

was creating. He took stock of his suit in a more optimistic spirit,

and reviewed, with some complacency, his actions for the last four

and twenty hours. Then he was dashed at the thought of her infinite

perfections.

She had been observing him quietly, rather more closely during the last

hour or so. She did not look at him directly because he seemed always

154

The Wheels of Chance