CHAPTER XVI
THE NIGHT SIDE OF LONDON
“
No stalls left,” Holderness declared, turning away from the box office at the Alhambra. “We’ll go in the promenade. We can find a chair there if we want to sit down.”
Macheson followed him up the stairs and into the heavily carpeted promenade. His memory of the evening, a memory which clung to him for long afterwards, seemed like a phantasmagoria of thrilling music, a stage packed with marvellously dressed women, whose movements were blended with the music into one voluptuous chorus—a blaze of colour not wholly without its artistic significance, and about him an air heavy with tobacco smoke and perfumes, a throng of moving people, more women—many more women. A girl spoke to Holderness,—a girl heavily rouged but not ill-looking, dressed in a blue muslin gown and large black hat. Holderness bent towards her deferentially. His voice seemed to take to itself its utmost note of courtesy, he answered her inquiry pleasantly, and accepted a glance at her programme. The girl looked puzzled, but they talked together for several moments of casual things. Then Holderness lifted his hat.
“My friend and I are tired,” he said. “We are going to look for a seat.”
She bowed and they strolled on down the promenade, finding some chairs at the further end. The dresses of the women brushed their feet and the perfume from the clothes was stronger even than the odour from the clouds of tobacco smoke which hung about the place. Macheson, in whom were generations of puritanical impulses, found himself shrinking back in his corner. Holderness turned towards him frowning.