The moment was over; the world went on again, but there were many there who would remember.
[CHAPTER X]
THE BEGINNING
They were to lunch with Peter in Marylebone. Millie had some commission to execute for Victoria and told Henry that she would meet him in Peter's room.
When she was gone he felt for a moment lost. He had been in truth dreaming ever since that last sight of Christina. He had no impulse to follow her—he knew that in that he had been wise—but he was busy enthroning her so that she would always remain with every detail of every incident connected with her until he died.
In this perhaps he was sentimental; nevertheless clearer-sighted than you would suppose. He knew that he had all his life before him, that many would come into it and would go out again, that there would be passions and desires satisfied and unsatisfied. But he also knew that nothing again would have in it quite the unselfish devotion that his passion for Christina had had. The first love is not the only love, but it is often the only love into which self does not enter.
His feet led him to Peter Street. The barrows were there with their apples and oranges and old clothes and boots and shoes and gimcrack china. The old woman with the teary eye was there, the policeman good-humouredly watching. It was all as it had been on that first afternoon now so long, long, long ago!
Henry looked at the yard, at the little blistered door, at the balcony. No sign of life in any of them.