Luke's experience in Leighton's office had long ago taught him that such a request was the commonest form of watch-stealing, but he was not afraid of losing his watch. He stopped under a lamp-post.
"Certainly," he said.
"I know it's late," pursued the woman, "but I don't know how late."
The words were thick. The voice was the voice of all the phantoms of the street, low in pitch and hoarse, but luring because of all that it connoted: because of the mystery, the adventure which, after all knowledge of her sordidness and all understanding of her frigidity, the woman who most reveals her body has maintained by that revelation's forced screening of her soul.
Luke consulted his watch.
"It's a quarter to eleven," he said.
He looked at her, and he was glad to look. That she was well-dressed, but overdressed and wore her clothes with the defiance of one unhabituated to them, did not impress him. What impressed him was the face that, in spite of its tokens of much evil done and more evil suffered, retained the fragile beauty which men associate with innocence. The calm, broad brow, the gray eyes wide and steady, the underlip timidly drawn back, the delicate chin upturned above a slim white throat, reminded him of the pictures of Joan of Arc on trial and foredoomed by her English accusers.
"It is late, isn't it?" she said.
"Yes," said Luke. He had forgotten about his watch; he was holding it loosely in his hand.
"I wonder," said the woman, "if it's too late for you to take a little walk with me."