The gentle circumstance of evening transmuted the trumpeting and soiled machines on the road into shining caravans, but never a glance at these wonders did Miss Wych give. Of the passers-by, one and all hurrying to the assault of tubes and omnibuses, maybe one here and there forfeited his place through looking twice at Miss Wych. Miss Wych was a very pretty girl. Her eyes were grey. Her nose would have looked absurd on anyone’s else face, because it was so small. Her face was as white as the moon.
Since she had made up her mind to walk to her boarding-house in South Kensington she did not join the people waiting for omnibuses at the corner of Marble Arch and Park Lane. They who had been in such haste a moment before now waited so quietly, so uneagerly, as though they didn’t care whether they were going home or not. The stillness of Park Lane seemed to Miss Wych very refreshing after the din of the panting hosts of Oxford Street. She walked in the broken shadows of the Park railings. A young man on a black horse cantered by, looking as though he had bought the world for tuppence and wanted his money back. Now and then an omnibus rolled by, rolled on, and on, and on, the red-and-white monster born of man’s divine gift for making his life intolerable. A young lady with a bright red hat in a little silver car tore by like a jewel in a hurry. Huge limousines sped, sped swiftly by, like shining insects whispering to Miss Wych of a grander world than the world of Miss Wych. The people in Hyde Park walked slowly to and fro listening to each other. When the sun lit their faces they looked brown and gold and copper-red, but otherwise they looked tired. Through the railings the sun fell in bars of gold about her feet and kissed the dark hair that waved over her ears, so that the dark hair shone in a way that was a wonder to behold. Miss Wych, of course, was always wishing that her hair was fair, but she was quite wrong about that. The thoughts of Miss Wych as she walked roughly: “The sun is sinking, if it only knew it, into Kensington Gardens. The sun is sinking, if it only knew it, into Kensington Gardens. The sun is....”
And a voice at her shoulder said:
“Excuse me! Please excuse me. I say, you must excuse me!”
Miss Wych thought: “And such things can happen in sunlight! O our Father, why won’t You watch Your world more carefully!”
III
Miss Wych walked on, in the broken shadows of the Park railings. And her eyes were turned to the sun, which did not know it was sinking into Kensington Gardens, for what else was there to look at? Then a bird flew across Park Lane and sat on a window-sill, and Miss Wych looked at that.
“Please,” said the voice at her shoulder. “You see, Miss Wych, I must. For I can’t bear it any more, honestly. Don’t be beastly to me, please!”
Miss Wych thought: “This is a fine thing, being spoken to by strange men! I suppose I look common or flashy or something, else he wouldn’t dare. What shall I do, oh, what shall I do? What do women do?”
“Look here,” said the voice at her shoulder, “I can’t keep this up any longer. I’m no good at speaking to people I don’t know. Good-bye.”