"But by God," he said to himself fiercely, when his mind came back again to the girl in front of him, "this isn't going to be another backstairs exit. . . . I must tell her. . . . I'm damned if I don't make an effort. . . ."
She had her handkerchief to her face.
"I'm always crying," she said. . . . "A little bubbling spring that can be trusted to keep on. . . ."
He looked to the right and to the left. Ruggles or General Someone with false teeth that didn't fit must be coming along. The street with its sooty boskage was clean empty and silent. She was looking at him. He didn't know how long he had been silent, he didn't know where he had been; intolerable waves urged him towards her.
After a long time he said:
"Well . . ."
She moved back. She said:
"I won't watch you out of sight. . . . It is unlucky to watch anyone out of sight. . . . But I will never . . . I will never cut what you said then out of my memory . . ." She was gone; the door shut. He had wondered what she would never cut out of her memory. That he had asked her that afternoon to be his mistress?
He had caught, outside the gates of his old office, a transport lorry that had given him a lift to Holborn. . . .