Putney. She scarcely knew whether she cared for these things for
themselves; but she saw them through Paul coloured by his vivid
personality. Once on Chelsea Bridge he had pointed out a peculiarly
ugly stretch of low-tide mud, and said: "Look at that." She, by
unprecedented chance, mistaking his tone, had replied: "How lovely!"
And she had thought it lovely, until his stare of rebuke and
wonderment brought disillusion and spurting tears, which for the
life of him he could not understand. It is very foolish, and often
suicidal, of men to correct women for going into rapture. over mud
flats. On that occasion, however, the only resultant harm was the
conviction in the girl's heart that the presence of Paul turned mud
flats into beds of asphodel. Then, just as she saw outer things
through his eyes, she felt herself regarded by outer eyes through
him. His rare and absurd beauty made him a cynosure whithersoever he
went. London, vast and seething, could produce no such perfect
Apollo. When she caught the admiring glances of others of her sex,
little Jane drew herself up proudly and threw back insolent glances
of triumph. "You would like to be where I am, wouldn't you?" the
glance would say, with the words almost formulated in her mind. "But
you won't. You never will be. I've got him. He's walking out with me
and not with you. I like to see you squirm, you envious little cat."
Jane was not a princess, she was merely a child of the people; but I
am willing to eat my boots if it can be satisfactorily proved that
there is a princess living on the face of the earth who would not be
delighted at seeing another woman cast covetous eyes on the man she
loved, and would not call her a cat (or its homonym) for doing so.

On this mild March afternoon Paul and Jane walked in the Euston
Road, he in a loose blue serge suit, floppy black tie, low collar
and black soft felt hat (this was in the last century, please