When the play was at an end Lizzie did not know what it had been about. She took his hand and when he was about to hail a cab stopped him.
"Let's walk," she said, "it's such a lovely night."
He eagerly agreed and they started.
III
She knew that her moment had come; he knew too—she could tell that because all the way up the Haymarket he said nothing.
Piccadilly Circus was a screaming confusion. A music-hall invited you to come and hear "Harry and Clare, drawing-room entertainers." Lights—red and green and gold—flashed and advised drinks and hair-oil and tobacco. Ladies, highly coloured and a little dishevelled; stared haughtily but inquisitively about them, boys shouted newspapers and dived under horses and appeared, miraculously delivered from the wheels of omnibuses.
It was a rushing, whirling confusion and through it his arm led her, happier in his secure guard than in anything else under heaven.
Regent Street was quiet and softly coloured above the maelstrom into which it flowed. He suddenly began:
"I've got something I want to tell you—something I've wanted to tell you for a long time. You must have seen——"