By the time I was having my first interview with real Cheddar cheese, the Traverses were inviting me to visit them, and I was gladly accepting their delightfully hospitable and unmistakably sincere invitation.
Scrupulously careful to bid good-bye to my Chicago friend before we reached London, alone I stepped from the train at Euston Station with a feeling of infinite anticipation.
Owing probably to an over-excited imagination, the mere physical atmosphere of the city impressed me as something quite different from any city I had ever seen. I felt as if I had at last come into my own, and had far more the attitude of a returning wanderer than a visiting stranger.
The hansom-cabs did not appear any different from the New York vehicles of the same name, but I climbed into one without that vague wonder as to whether it wouldnt be cheaper to buy the outfit than to pay my fare.
My destination was a club in Piccadilly a womans club, which I had joined for the sole purpose of using its house as an abiding-place.
The cab-driver was cordial, even solicitous about my comfort, but finally myself and my hand-luggage were carefully stowed away, the glass was put down, and we started.
It was after dark, and it was raining, two conditions which might appall an unescorted woman in a strange city. The rain was of that ridiculous English sort, where the drops do not fall, but play around in the air, now and then whisking into the faces of passers-by, but never spoiling their clothes. It was enough, though, to wet the asphalt, and when we swung into Piccadilly, and the flashing lights from everywhere dived down into the street, and rippled themselves across the wet blackness of the pavement, I suddenly realized that I was driving over one of the most beautiful things in the world.