cab wheeled smartly across Piccadilly, swung into Half Moon Street, and
thereafter made better time, darting briskly down abrupt vistas of shining
pavement, walled in by blank-visaged houses, or round two sides of one of
London's innumerable private parks, wherein spring foliage glowed a tender
green in artificial light; now and again it crossed brilliant main arteries
of travel, and eventually emerged from a maze of backways into Oxford
Street, to hammer eastwards to Tottenham Court Road.

Constraint hung like a curtain between the two; a silence which the young
man forbore to moderate, finding more delight that he had cared (or dared)
confess to, in contemplation of the pure girlish profile so close to him.

She seemed quite unaware of him, lost in thought, large eyes sober, lips
serious that were fashioned for laughter, round little chin firm with some
occult resolution. It was not hard to fancy her nerves keyed to a high
pitch of courage and determination, nor easy to guess for what reason.
Watching always, keenly sensitive to the beauty of each salient line
betrayed by the flying lights, Kirkwood's own consciousness lost itself in
a profitless, even a perilous labyrinth of conjecture.

The cab stopped. Both occupants came to their senses with a little start.
The girl leaned out over; the apron, recognized the house she sought in one
swift glance, testified to the recognition with a hushed exclamation,
and began to arrange her skirts. Kirkwood, unheeding her faint-hearted
protests, jumped out, interposing his cane between her skirts and the
wheel. Simultaneously he received a vivid mental photograph of the
locality.

Frognall Street proved to be one of those by-ways, a short block in
length, which, hemmed in on all sides by a meaner purlieu, has (even in