So they walked. She had her usual serious expression, as it were full of
the consciousness of duty. It made him think how reliable she would
always be. She held herself straight and independently, and her
appearance was very simple and very trim. He considered it wrong that a
girl with such beautiful lips should have to consult callous
bookbinders and accept whatever they chose to say. To him she was like a
lovely and valiant martyr. The spectacle of her was touching. However,
he could not have dared to hint at these sentiments. He had to pretend
that her exposure to the stresses of the labour-market was quite natural
and right. Always he was careful in his speech with her. When he got to
know people he was apt to be impatient and ruthless; for example, to
John Orgreave and his wife, and to his mother and stepfather, and
sometimes even to Everard Lucas. He would bear them down. But he was
restrained from such freedoms with Enwright, and equally with Marguerite
Haim. She did not intimidate him, but she put him under a spell.

Crossing Piccadilly Circus he had a glimpse of the rising walls and the
scaffolding of the new restaurant. He pointed to the building without a
word. She nodded and smiled.

In the Mall, where the red campanile of the cathedral was first
descried, George began to get excited. And he perceived that Marguerite
sympathetically responded to his excitement. She had never even noticed
the campanile before, and the reason was that the cathedral happened not
to be on the route between Alexandra Grove and her principal customers.
Suddenly, out of Victoria Street, they came up against the vast form of
the Byzantine cathedral. It was hemmed in by puny six-story blocks of
flats, as ancient cathedrals also are hemmed in by the dwellings of
townsfolk. But here, instead of the houses having gathered about the