His round eyes gloated upon the flattery.
‘Well, well, I mustn’t pretend that I think the lecture worthless. But you might have had the manuscript to read. Are you quite alone? Then I must take care of you. It’s a wretched night; we’ll have a cab to King’s Cross.’
He said it with a consciousness of large-handed generosity. Jessica’s heart leapt and throbbed.
She was by his side in the vehicle. Her body touched his. She felt his warm breath as he talked. In all too short a time they reached the railway station.
‘Did you come this way? Have you a ticket? Leave that to me.’
Again largely generous, he strode to the booking-office.
They descended and stood together upon the platform, among hurrying crowds, in black fumes that poisoned the palate with sulphur. This way and that sped the demon engines, whirling lighted waggons full of people. Shrill whistles, the hiss and roar of steam, the bang, clap, bang of carriage-doors, the clatter of feet on wood and stone—all echoed and reverberated from a huge cloudy vault above them. High and low, on every available yard of wall, advertisements clamoured to the eye: theatres, journals, soaps, medicines, concerts, furniture, wines, prayer-meetings—all the produce and refuse of civilisation announced in staring letters, in daubed effigies, base, paltry, grotesque. A battle-ground of advertisements, fitly chosen amid subterranean din and reek; a symbol to the gaze of that relentless warfare which ceases not, night and day, in the world above.
For the southward train they had to wait ten minutes. Jessica, keeping as close as possible to her companion’s side, tried to converse, but her thoughts were in a tumult like to that about her. She felt a faintness, a quivering in her limbs.
‘May I sit down for a moment?’ she said, looking at Barmby with a childlike appeal.
‘To be sure.’