by, who would never be anything but
Bobby, and Major Cairns too. Victoria felt a tiny pang as she thought of
the Major. He was hardly young or handsome but strong, reassuring. She
suddenly felt his lips on her neck again as she gazed rapidly at the
dark lift on the horizon of the coast of Araby. He was a good fellow,
the Major. She would like to meet him again.

She had reached Westminster Bridge. Her thoughts fell away from the
comfortable presence of Major Cairns. Hunched up against the parapet sat
the old vagrant she had seen there before, motionless, his rags lifting
in the breeze, puffs of smoke coming at long intervals from his short
clay pipe. Victoria shuddered; it seemed as if her life were bound to a
wheel which brought her back inexorably to the same spot until the time
came for her to lose there energy and life itself. She turned quickly
towards the Embankment, and, as she rounded the curve, caught a glimpse
of the old vagrant. The symbol of time had not moved.

Another twenty minutes of quick walking had brought her to the City. She
was no longer fearful of it; indeed she almost enjoyed its surge and
roar. Log that she was, tossed on a stormy sea, she could not help
feeling the joy of life in its buffeting. Not even the dullness and
eternal length of Queen Victoria Street, which seems in the City, like
Gower Street, indefinite and interminable, robbed her of the curious
exultation which she felt whenever she entered the precincts. Here at
least was life and doing; ugly doing perhaps, but things worthy of the
name of action. At Mansion House she stopped for a moment to look at the
turmoil: drays, motorbuses, cabs, cycles, entangled and threatening
everywhere the little running black mites of humanity.

As Victoria passed the Bank and walked up Princes Street she felt
hungry, for it was nearly one o'clock. She turned up a lane and stopped
before a small shop which arrested her attention by its name above the
door. It was called 'The Rosebud Cafe,' every letter of its name being
made up of tiny roses; all the woodwork was painted white; the door was
glazed and faced with pink curtains; pink half blinds lined the two
small windows, nothing appearing through them except, right and left,
two tall palms. 'The Rosebud' had a freshness and newness that pleased
her; and, as it boldly announced luncheons and teas, she pushed the
white door open and entered. The room was larger than the outside gave
reason to think,