his desire to say something cheering, he could get nothing out but a
shame-faced smile. Her figure vanished, wavering into the hurly-burly;
one of his bags had gone astray, and so all thought of her soon faded
from his mind. His cab, however, overtook the foreign vagrant marching
along towards Pall Mall with a curious, lengthy stride--an observant,
disillusioned figure.

The first bustle of installation over, time hung heavy on his hands.
July loomed distant, as in some future century; Antonia's eyes beckoned
him faintly, hopelessly. She would not even be coming back to England
for another month.

. . . I met a young foreigner in the train from Dover [he wrote to
her]--a curious sort of person altogether, who seems to have infected
me. Everything here has gone flat and unprofitable; the only good things
in life are your letters.... John Noble dined with me yesterday; the
poor fellow tried to persuade me to stand for Parliament. Why should I
think myself fit to legislate for the unhappy wretches one sees about in
the streets? If people's faces are a fair test of their happiness, I' d
rather not feel in any way responsible....

The streets, in fact, after his long absence in the East, afforded
him much food for thought: the curious smugness of the passers-by; the
utterly unending bustle; the fearful medley of miserable, over-driven
women, and full-fed men, with leering, bull-beef eyes, whom he saw
everywhere--in club windows, on their beats, on box seats, on the
steps of hotels, discharging dilatory duties; the appalling chaos
of hard-eyed, capable dames with defiant clothes, and white-cheeked
hunted-looking men; of splendid creatures in their cabs, and cadging
creatures in their broken hats--the callousness and the monotony!