She laughed softly, and they looked around together at the dimly burning gas-lights, the creaking scenery being drawn back from the stage, the woman with a brush and mop sweeping, and at that dismal perspective of holland-shrouded auditorium beyond, now quite deserted.
“At least,” she said, “your impressions cannot be mixed ones. It is hideous here.”
He did not contradict her; and they both ignored Ellison’s murmured compliment.
“It is very draughty,” he remarked, “and you seem cold; we must not keep you here. May we—can I,” he added, glancing down the stone passage, “show you to your carriage?”
She laughed softly.
“You may come with me,” she said, “but our exit is like a rabbit burrow; we must go in single file, and almost on hands and knees.”
She led the way, and they followed her into the street. A small brougham was waiting at the door, and her maid was standing by it. The commissionaire stood away, and Matravers closed the carriage door upon them. Her white, ungloved hand, loaded—overloaded it seemed to him—with rings, stole through the window, and he held it for a moment in his. He felt somehow that he was expected to say something. She was looking at him very intently. There was some powder on her cheeks, which he noted with an instinctive thrill of aversion.
“Shall I tell him home?” he asked.
“If you please,” she answered.
“Madam!” her maid interposed.