noons of beaten gold, until in pearl-gray dusks each day met its night
delicately. For Maurice and Jenny even the night conjured no wintry
thoughts, and when the moon came up round and tawny, floating
unsubstantially above the black house-tops, an aged moon lacquered with
rust, full of calamities, these lovers were not dismayed; although they
were not influenced to quick and fervid enterprises.

No doubt, if they had wandered, treading violets under foot, beneath the
silver moons of Spring, there would have been a more rapid encounter of
emotions. But the tranquillity of nature affected Maurice particularly.
He was like a man who, having endured the grief of long separation,
meets his love in joyful security. It was as if with a sigh he folded
her to his arms, conscious only of acquiring her presence. He had from
the fret of London gained the quiet of high green cliffs and was no
longer ambitious of anything save meditation on the beauty spread before
his eyes. He had bought the much-desired book, and now was idly turning
its leaves, safe in the triumph of possession.

Jenny, too, after her long experience of casual attraction, was glad to
surrender herself to the luxury of absent effort; but in her case the
feverishness of a child, who dreads any discussion that may rob the
perfect hour of a single honeyed moment, made her fling white arms
around his neck and hold him for her own against invisible thieves.

There exist in the heart of a London dawn a few minutes when the street
lamps have just been extinguished, but before the sun has risen, when
the city cannot fail to be beautiful even in its meanest aspects. At
such an hour the Bayswater Road has the mystery of a dew-steeped glade;
the Strand wears the frail hues of a sea-shell; Regent Street is
crystalline. Even Piccadilly Circus stands on the very summit of the
world, wind-washed and noble.

To Maurice and Jenny London was always a city seen at dawn; so many dull
streets had been enchanted by their meetings, so many corners had been
invested with the delight of the loved one's new appearance. But, though
they were still imparadised, a certain wistfulness in looks and
handclasps showed that they both instinctively felt they would never
again tread the pavement so lightly, never again make time a lyric, life
a measure.

On the afternoon before Jenny's birthday, she and Maurice had gone to
Hampstead, there to discuss the details of a wonderful party that was to