Indeed, the temper of the meeting was now unfavorable to separate
conversation; it had become rather debauched and hilarious, and people
who scarcely knew each other were making use of Christian names with
apparent cordiality, and had reached that kind of gay tolerance and
general friendliness which human beings in England only attain after
sitting together for three hours or so, and the first cold blast in
the air of the street freezes them into isolation once more. Cloaks
were being flung round the shoulders, hats swiftly pinned to the head;
and Denham had the mortification of seeing Katharine helped to prepare
herself by the ridiculous Rodney. It was not the convention of the
meeting to say good-bye, or necessarily even to nod to the person with
whom one was talking; but, nevertheless, Denham was disappointed by
the completeness with which Katharine parted from him, without any
attempt to finish her sentence. She left with Rodney.



CHAPTER V

Denham had no conscious intention of following Katharine, but, seeing
her depart, he took his hat and ran rather more quickly down the
stairs than he would have done if Katharine had not been in front of
him. He overtook a friend of his, by name Harry Sandys, who was going
the same way, and they walked together a few paces behind Katharine
and Rodney.

The night was very still, and on such nights, when the traffic thins
away, the walker becomes conscious of the moon in the street, as if
the curtains of the sky had been drawn apart, and the heaven lay bare,
as it does in the country. The air was softly cool, so that people who