Three miles away from the little town was the big city with tramways, electric light, factories, canals, and tens of thousands of people, and there a few nights later he met Ianthe. Walking around and away from the happy lighted streets they came out upon the bank of a canal where darkness and loneliness were intensified by the silent passage of black water whose current they could define but not see. As they stepped warily along the unguarded bank he embraced her. Even as he did so he cursed himself for a fool to be so fond of this wretched imp of a girl. In his heart he believed he disliked her, but he was not sure. She was childish, artful, luscious, stupid—this was no gesture for a man with any standards. Silently clutching each other they approached an iron bridge with lamps upon it and a lighted factory beyond it. The softly-moving water could now be seen; the lamps on the bridge let down thick rods of light into its quiet depths, and beyond the arch the windows of the factory, inverted in the stream, bloomed like baskets of fire with flaming fringes. A boy shuffled across the bridge whistling a tune; there was the distant rumble and trot of a cab. Then all sounds melted into quiet without one wave of air. Ianthe was replying to him:
"No, no, I like it, I like you." She put her brow against his breast: "I like you, I like you."
His embracing hand could feel the emotion streaming within the girl.
"Do you like me better than her?"
"Than whom," he asked.
Ianthe was coy. "You know, you know."
Masterman's feelings were a mixture of perturbation and delight, delight at this manifestation of jealousy of her sister which was an agreeable thing, anyway, for it implied a real depth of regard for him; but he was perturbed, for he did not know what Kate had told this sister of their last strange meeting.
He saluted her again, exclaiming:
"Never mind her. This our outing, isn't it?"
"I don't like her," Ianthe added naively, "she is so awfully fond of you."