Langholm glanced at himself in the little
mirror. His was an honest face, and it was an honest part that he must
play, or none at all. He leaned over the apron and interested himself in
the London life that was so familiar to him still. It was as though he
had not been absent above a day, yet his perceptions were sharpened by
his very absence of so many weeks. The wood pavement gave off a strong
but not unpleasant scent in the heavy August heat; it was positively
dear to the old Londoner's nostrils. The further he drove upon his
southwesterly course, the emptier were the well-known thoroughfares. St.
James's Street might have been closed to traffic; the clubs in Pall
Mall were mostly shut. On the footways strolled the folk whom one only
sees there in August and September, the entire families from the
country, the less affluent American, guide book in hand. Here and there
was a perennial type, the pale actor with soft hat and blue-black chin,
the ragged sloucher from park to park. Langholm could have foregathered
with one and all, such was the strange fascination of the town for one
who was twice the man among his northern roses.
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