since learnt that to decide always correctly by appearance, and apart
from environment and gesture, whether an unknown woman was or was not
a wanton, presented a task beyond the powers of even the completest
experience. But Christine was walking in Piccadilly at night, and
he soon perceived that she was discreetly showing the demeanour of
a courtesan at her profession--she who had hated and feared the
pavement! He knew too well the signs--the waverings, the turns of the
head, the variations in speed, the scarcely perceptible hesitations,
the unmistakable air of wandering with no definite objective.

Near Dover Street he hastened through the thin, reflecting mire, amid
beams of light and illuminated numbers that advanced upon him in both
directions thundering or purring, and crossed Piccadilly, and hurried
ahead of her, to watch her in safety from the other side of the
thoroughfare. He could hardly see her; she was only a moving shadow;
but still he could see her; and in the long stretch of gloom beneath
the facade of the Royal Academy he saw the shadow pause in front of a
military figure, which by a flank movement avoided the shadow and went
resolutely forward. He lost her in front of the Piccadilly Hotel,
and found her again at the corner of Air Street. She swerved into Air
Street and crossed Regent Street; he was following. In Denman Street,
close to Shaftesbury Avenue, she stood still in front of another
military figure--a common soldier as it proved--who also rebuffed her.
The thing was flagrant. He halted, and deliberately let her go from
his sight. She vanished into the dark crowds of the Avenue.

In horrible humiliation, in atrocious disgust, he said to himself:

"Never will I set eyes on her again! Never! Never!"