She hurried on, leaving silence behind her.
The lamps were alight; they shone pale and blurred through the fog. The lights from the shops made little pathways of misty light across the pavement. It was very raw, the air was bitter, wet, laden with sleet. She had not brought an umbrella with her; she was so unused to umbrellas. She turned up the collar of her coat, and valiantly suppressed a shiver. Kate Kearney trotted dejectedly at her heels.
"We will go for a long walk, K.K., won't we? And then we will take an omnibus back again. There are always omnibuses in London to take one everywhere.... Some people are so fussy and frumpish, aren't they?"
She was in dull, quiet streets; the effect of the tall houses, wet, ghostlike in the fog, was gloomy, weird. They got on her nerves, set them jarring. A deep depression seized upon her; she ceased trying to fight it. She was too cold, too wretched. She found herself suddenly in a dirty, noisy street, amongst innumerable barrows, innumerable ragged children. Everyone was shouting, it seemed to her; their voices were hideous. Everyone jostled her. She was afraid, horribly afraid. It was all so squalid, so inexpressibly sordid. She shrank back appalled. The noise set her head throbbing and aching. Through the fog she could discern an unending stream of traffic; she could see omnibuses. But to get to one she must slip between two barrows—venture into that muddy road. She hesitated, went on nervously, at a loss. She walked up the Hampstead Road, and came out upon Euston Road, where numberless omnibuses were drawn up. The noise was worse than before. She tried to find out which was her omnibus by listening to the conductors' raucous voices. She was deafened by the din.
"King's Cross! Baker Street! 'Ammersmith! Victoria!"
She approached the nearest conductor, and asked if he went to Henley Road.
"What road, miss?"
"Henley Road."
'"Enley Road? Where is it, miss?"
"It,"—she faltered, at a loss,—"oh," brightening—"it leads out of Gardiner Street!"