It is true that when he got down into Kensington Road
he found a long procession of wagons slowly making their way into the
great city; but this dull, drowsy noise was not ungrateful; in much
content and idly he walked away eastward, looking in from time to time
at the beautiful greensward of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park. He was
in no hurry. He liked the stillness, the gracious coolness and quietude
of the morning, after the hot and feverish nights at the theatre. When
at length he reached his lodging in Piccadilly, let himself in with his
latch-key, and went up-stairs to his rooms, he did not go to bed at
once. He drew an easy-chair to the front window, threw himself into it,
lit a cigarette, and stared absently across to the branching elms and
grassy undulations of the Green Park. Perhaps he was thinking of the
pretty, fantastic little comedy that had just been performed up in that
garden at Campden Hill--like some dream-picture out of Boccaccio. And if
he chanced to recall the fact that the actor who originally played the
part of Damon, at Drury Lane, some hundred and forty years ago, married
in real life an earl's daughter, that was but a passing fancy.
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