"You'll let me see you home, won't you?" he asked.
"Would you? Thanks, so much."
They passed out of the station, and he called a hansom. His hand held her arm firmly as he helped her into the cab. She thanked him with her eyes. The moment was precious. It seemed that he had taken Kenneth's place; that, henceforth, she would look to him for protection.
They rode in silence through the lamp-lit terraces, where the white houses stood tall and ghostly, flinging their shadows across the road. There was nothing for him to say. He knew that their thoughts were running in the same groove. The sudden clear ray of a lamp flashed intermittently as the cab came into the range of its light, and he could see her face, serene, thoughtful, and very beautiful. It made him think of the photograph that lay in his pocket, against his heart.... She was very close to him, closer than she had ever been before, so close that he had but to put out his arms and draw her lips to his. Never again, he thought, would she be as close to him as she was at this moment. And the memory of Lilian intruded ... and with the memory came a vision of just such a ride homewards in a hansom.... Ah, but Elizabeth was of a finer fibre,—a higher being altogether. His body tingled at his thoughts. His imagination ran riot in the long silence, and he did not seek to check it.
He was seized by an indefinite impulse to hazard all his future in the rashness of a moment, to take her and kiss her, and tell her that he loved her.
"Here we are," she said, with a sudden movement as the cab jolted to a standstill.
He sighed. How calm and remote she seemed from love.
"You must come in for a moment and have something."
He hesitated from conventional politeness.
"The drive has been cold," she said. "I will ask Ellen to mix you a whisky and soda; and I daresay she's left some sandwiches for us."