Women who have
loved are sorry for men who love them, but women who do not know what
the word means are either amused or irritated by it. The conversation,
carried on in a careful undertone, and lasting only about five minutes,
was one that the girl would never, she knew, be able to forget, and one
that neither she nor the man could ever make even a pretence of
forgiving.
Far too excited and annoyed to read, she watched with unseeing eyes the
swift flight of the familiar landscape, and then suddenly, as the train
stopped, came to herself with a start. Victoria!
Mechanically, her thick chiffon veil over her face, she looked after
her luggage, took a hansom, and drove down Victoria Street, past the
Abbey, over Westminster Bridge, and so to Waterloo Station.
London was dull, but its dulness, grey and soft, was being mitigated by
a gradual and beautiful blossoming of lights--lights reddish, golden,
and clear white. People hurried along the streets, hansoms jingled and
passed by, buses and vans blocked the view and then, with elephantine
deliberateness, ambled on. Motors of all kinds grunted and jingled, from
the opulent, throaty-voiced ones, that chuckle as if they were fed on
turtle-soup, to the cheap variety, that sound as they pass like an
old-fashioned tinsmith's waggon.
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