Reuben broke the silence for the first time.
“No, not at all.” She smiled, then holding back the red drapery with her hand, looked out into the night.
The November air was damp, warm, and filled full of a yellow haze which any but a Londoner would have called a fog.
Across the yard and a half of garden which divided the house from the street, she could see the long deserted thoroughfare with its double line of lamps, their flames shining dull through the mist.
Reuben watched her. The clear curve of the lifted arm, the beautiful lines of the half-averted face stirred his already excited senses.
“Judith!”
She turned her face, with its almost ecstatic look, towards him, letting fall the curtain.
There were some chrysanthemums like snowflakes in her bodice, scarcely showing against the white, and as she turned, Reuben bent towards her and laid his hand on them.
“I am going to commit a theft,” he said, and his low voice shook a little.