2
With the basket of roses over her arm she walked as rapidly as possible down to Oxford Circus taking the first turning out of Wimpole Street to hurry the more secretly and conveniently. A ’bus took her to Charing Cross where she jumped off as soon as it began pulling up and ran down the Strand. As soon as she felt herself flying towards her bourne the fears that last week’s magic would have disappeared left her altogether. Last week had been wonderful, an adventure her first deliberate piece of daring in London. Inside the theatre the scruples and the daring had been forgotten. To-day again everything would be forgotten, everything; to-day’s happiness was more secure; it would not mean going almost foodless over the week-end and without an egg for supper all next week; there was no anticipation of disapproving eyes in the theatre this week; the sense of the impropriety of going alone had gone; it would never return; the feeling of selfishness in spending money on a theatre alone was still there, but a voice within answered that—saying that there was no one at hand to go and no one she knew who would find at the Lyceum performance just what she found, no one to whom it would mean much more than a theatre; like any other theatre and a play, amongst other plays, with a celebrated actor taking the chief part ... except Mag. Mag had been with her as she gazed. Mag was with her now. Mag, fulfilling one or other of her exciting Saturday afternoon engagements would sit at her side.
Easy and happy she fled along ... her heart greeting each passenger in the scattered throng she threaded, her eyes upon the traffic in the roadway. A horseless brougham went by, moving smoothly and silently amongst the noisy traffic—the driver looked as though he were fastened to the front of the vehicle, a little tin driver on a clockwork toy; there was nothing between him and the road but the platform of the little tank on which his feet were set. He looked as if he were falling off. If anything ran into him there was nothing to protect him. It left an uncomfortable memory ... it would only be for carriages; the well-loved horse omnibuses would go on ... it must be somewhere near here ... “Lyceum Pit,” there it was, just ahead, easily discernible. Last week when she had had to ask, she had not noticed the words printed on the side of the passage that showed as you came down the Strand. The pavement was clear for a moment and she rounded the near angle and ran home down the passage without slackening her pace, her half-crown ready in her hand, a Lyceum pittite.