"You've got a jolly fine piano, any way," said Jenny, sitting down to a Bechstein grand to pick out some of Miss Victoria Monk's songs with the right hand while she held a cigarette in the left.
"Then I write a bit," said Maurice. "Criticisms, you know. I told you I wrote a notice of your ballet. I'm twenty-four and I shall come into a certain amount of money, and my people live in a large house in Surrey and oh, I—well—I'm a dilettante. Now you know my history."
"Whatever on earth's a dilly—you do use the most unnatural words. I shall call you Dictionary Dick."
"Look here, let's chuck explanations," said Maurice. "I simply must kiss you. Let's go and look out at the river."
He pulled her towards the window and flung it wide open. Together they leaned out, smoking. The sparrows were silent now. They could hear the splash and gurgle of the water against the piers, and the wind shaking the plane tree bare along the embankment. They watched the lamp-lighter go past on his twinkling pilgrimage. They listened to the thunder of London streets a long way off. Their cigarettes were finished. Together they dropped to extinction in a shower of orange sparks below.
Maurice drew Jenny back into the darkening room.
"Look! The windows are like big sapphires," he said, and caught her to his arms. They stood enraptured in the dusk and shadows of the old house. Round them Attic shapes glimmered: the gods of Greece regarded them: Aphrodite laughed.
"Don't all these statues frighten you?" said Jenny.
"No, they're too beautiful."
"Oh!" screamed Jenny. "Oh! She moved. She moved."