It was a clear autumn night: the air was mild, and stars were burning overhead almost as brightly as the lamps in Shaftesbury Avenue. What a chase of lamps, high and low, like fireflies in a wood: green as grass, red as blood, or yellow as a naked flame! What a sombre city, and what a fleeting crowd! Isabel had never seen midnight London before. Coming out into the hurrying street roofed with stars, she was seized by an impression of a solitude lonelier than any desert, and dark, like the terror of an eerie sunset or a dry storm on the moor.
"These taxis are waiting for us," Lawrence had come up behind her and his hand was on her arm. "Will you bring your sister, Selincourt?— Miss Isabel, will you come with me?"
"Oh but—!" said Laura, startled. She was responsible to Val for Isabel, and she was not sure that either Val or Isabel would welcome this arrangement.
"Thank you," said Isabel, obediently getting into the second cab.
"Better come, dear," said Selincourt with a shrug, and Laura yielded, for it would have been tiresome to make Isabel get out again, and after all what signified a twenty minutes' run? Yet after the Cleve incident she did not quite like it. Nor did Selincourt; Hyde's overbearing manner set his teeth on edge; but the gentle Lucian would sooner have faced a loaded rifle than a dispute. He agreed with Laura, however, that her fair Arcadian was a trifle too innocent for her years.
Alone with Isabel, Lawrence took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thick fair hair, so thick that it might have been grey, while the deep lines round his mouth began to soften as though fatigue and irritation were being wiped away. "Thank heaven that's over."
"I've enjoyed every minute of it," said Isabel smiling. "Thank you, Captain Hyde, for giving me such a delightful treat! If I weren't sleepy I should like to begin again."
"Oh, don't get sleepy yet," said Lawrence. He pulled up the fur collar of her coat and buttoned it under her chin. "I can't have you catching cold, or what will Val say? You aren't used to driving about in evening dress and we've a long run before us. And how I have been longing for it all the evening, haven't you? I didn't know how to sit through that confounded play. Yes, you can take in Selincourt and Laura but you can't take me in. I know you must have hated it as much as I did. But it's all right now." Sitting sideways with one knee crossed over the other, his face turned towards Isabel, without warning he put his arm round her waist. He had determined not to ask her to marry him till he was sure of her answer, but he was sure of it now, intuitively sure of it . . . the truth being that under his impassive manner impulse was driving him along like a leaf in the wind. "I love you, Isabel, and you love me. Don't deny it."
"Don't do that," said Isabel: "don't hold me."
"Why not? no one can see us."