The Serpent's Shadow

Then a hand closed on her elbow, and she stifled a yelp as her eyes flew open. A nearby librarian turned to level a glare at her.

'Much as I appreciate this place,' Peter Scott breathed in her ear, 'I don't think this is the best spot for a discussion. May I invite you to a late tea?'

Mutely, she nodded, and he let go of her. With a nod of his head, he indicated the way back out, and with a sigh of regret, she followed him back out, past the galleries, and into the clattering streets again.

PETER Scott did not venture to take her arm again, and Maya wasn't certain if she was pleased or disappointed by this. Such an action would have been improper in anyone but a relative or a suitor—

Yes, but just how 'proper' is my position?

Young men in spectacles with rumpled suits, older men walking with careful dignity, and a loud American couple with their adolescent children passed them as they exited the building next to the left-hand lion. It was quite six o'clock, perhaps later; the museum remained open late on some nights, and this was one of them. Amateur scientists of all walks of life haunted the building in every possible hour that it was open, and many of them had livings to make. It was for the convenience of those who had to earn their bread that the museum kept later hours. Shops stayed open until eight or nine in the evening, men often worked that late in their offices, and dinner at six was something no one even considered except in the country. Londoners prided themselves on being cosmopolitan and modern; the gas and electric lights meant that no one was a slave to the sun going down anymore.

Which, for the working poor, only means longer and harder hours—but no one ever consults them. If a shop stayed open until eight, the poor little shopgirl didn't see her home until ten. If the museum stayed open until nine, the charwoman couldn't start her work until the last visitor left, which meant she worked all night. Must it always be that great advances are made at the expense of the poor? Maya thought bleakly, then shook off her rnood. She was doing what she could for others; the best she could do would be to continue doing that, and hope that her example would inspire more to do likewise. She had to be certain of that, or fall into despair.

She took a few deep breaths of relatively sweet air to raise her spirits. The museum stood in a neighborhood that was patrolled religiously by street sweepers, and until winter came, there would be no dense smoke from coal fires lingering in the air. Peter looked about for a moment, then turned back to her. 'Would you mind terribly if I took you to my club for dinner?' he asked diffidently, as she stood on the sidewalk at the base of the lion statue and waited for him to indicate a direction. 'I know I asked you to come here later than teatime, and I shouldn't like you to starve on my account.'

'Your club?' she said with surprise. 'I thought that men's clubs were havens away from the company of mere females.' An older gentleman passing by overheard her response, and smiled briefly into her eyes before continuing on into the museum.

Peter chuckled. 'They often are, but this one happens to have a room where one can bring lady guests for a meal without disturbing the meditations of the members—largely, I suspect, because the female relatives of our members have insisted on it.'

'In that case—' She thought for a moment. She had told Gupta not to expect her for dinner, expecting to make a meal of whatever she found in the kitchen when she returned home. 'I suppose it is a place where we won't be overheard? If so, I accept your kind invitation—if not, perhaps we ought to, oh, take a walk in Hyde Park instead?' She tilted her head to the side, quizzically. 'I've no objection to a walk instead of a meal.'

'Better to say that it's a place where it won't matter if we're overheard.' With that mysterious statement, he hailed a passing cab—a hansom—and handed her into it.

With the cabby right overhead, they kept their conversation to commonplaces—he, inquiring if she intended to take a holiday anywhere this summer and commiserating when she admitted that neither her duties nor her schedule would permit it. 'I'm afraid I'm in the situation where I cannot leave my business, and London in the summer can be stifling,' he said with a grimace. 'Especially in August. Usually the worst weather doesn't last long, but it can be very uncomfortable, even with doors and windows wide to catch whatever breeze there might be.'

'You say this to someone who lived through summers in Delhi?' she laughed. 'Pray complain about 'hot' weather to someone else! If the worst comes, I'll serve gin-and-tonics, then install a punkah fan in the conservatory and hire one of the neighborhood urchins to swing it!'

The cab stopped outside a staid old Georgian building of some pale-colored stone. Peter handed her out and paid the cabby, then offered his hand to help her up the steps to where a uniformed doorman waited. This worthy was a stiff-backed, stone-faced gentleman of military bearing, whose mustache fairly bristled disapproval as he looked at her.