a girl might have learnt them.... And they
were all beautiful beneath the music. The music softened; the fountain
was heard; the striking of matches was heard.... Still, all was
beautiful. Then he touched Marguerite's hand as it rested a little
behind her on the ledge. The effect of contact was surprising. With all
his other thoughts he had not ceased to think of the idea of shielding
and enveloping her. But now this idea utterly possessed him. The music
grew louder, and as it were under cover of the music he put his hand
round her hand. It was a venturesome act with such a girl; he was
afraid.... The hand lay acquiescent within his! He tightened the
pressure. The hand lay acquiescent; it accepted. The flashing
realization of her compliance overwhelmed him. He was holding the very
symbol of wild purity, and there was no effort to be free. None
guessed. None could see. They two had the astonishing, the incredible
secret between them. He looked at her profile, taking precautions. No
sign of alarm or disturbance. Her rapt glance was fixed steadily on the
orchestra framed in the arched doorway.... Incredible, the soft, warm
delicacy of the cotton glove!

The applause at the end of the number awoke them. He released her hand.
She slipped neatly down from the ledge.

"I think I ought to be going back home.... Father ..." she murmured. She
met his eyes; but his embarrassed eyes would not meet hers.

"Certainly!" he agreed quickly, though they had been in the hall little
more than half an hour. He would have agreed to any suggestion from her.
It seemed to him that the least he could do at that moment was to fulfil
unquestioningly her slightest wish. Then she looked away, and he saw
that a deep blush gradually spread over her lovely face. This was the
supreme impressive phenomenon. Before the blush he was devotional.

V

They walked down Regent Street almost in silence, enjoying
simultaneously the silence and solitude of the curving thoroughfare and
the memory of the bright, crowded, triumphant scene which they had left.
At Piccadilly Circus George inquired for the new open motor-buses which
had just begun to run between the Circus and Putney, passing the
Redcliffe Arms. Already, within a year, the time was historically
distant when a policeman had refused to allow the automobile of a Member
of Parliament to enter Palace Yard, on the ground that there was no
precedent for such a desecration. The new motor-buses, however