On turning again, he found that the waiter was watching him from the
window of the restaurant, and it seemed to the young man that the
pale, servile face wore a malicious smile. With the feeling of
disconcertion that springs from being caught in an impulsive action we
have believed unobserved, Maurice spun round on his heel and took a
few quick steps in the opposite direction. When once he was out of
range of the window, however, he dropped his pace, and at the next
corner stopped altogether. He would at least have liked to know her
name. And what in all the world was he to do with himself now?

Clouds had gathered; the airy blue and whiteness of the morning had
become a level sheet of grey, which wiped the colour out of
everything; the wind, no longer tempered by the sun, was chilly, as it
whirled down the narrow streets and freaked about the corners. There
was little temptation now to linger on one's steps. But Maurice Guest
was loath to return to the solitary room that stood to him for home,
to shut himself up with himself, inside four walls: and turning up his
coat collar, he began to walk slowly along the curved
GRIMMAISCHESTRASSE. But the streets were by this time black with
people, most of whom came hurrying towards him, brisk and bustling,
and gay, in spite of the prevailing dullness, at the prospect of the
warm, familiar evening. He was continually obliged to step off the
pavement into the road, to allow a bunch of merry, chattering
girls, their cheeks coloured by the wind beneath the dark fur of their
hats, or a line of gaudy capped, thickset students, to pass him by,
unbroken; and it seemed to him that he was more frequently off the
pavement than on it. He began to feel disconsolate among these jovial
people, who were hastening forward, with such spirit, to some end, and
he had not gone far, before he turned down a side street to be out of
their way. Vaguely damped by his environment, which, with the sun's