They stayed till the concert was over, and then walked away down Regent Street, which was moist and dreary, full of mist and of ugly noises.
"When do you start for Egypt?" said Meyer Isaacson.
"In about ten days, I think. Do you wish you were going there?"
"I cannot possibly escape."
"But do you wish to?"
For a moment Isaacson did not answer.
"I do and I don't," he said, after the pause. "Work holds one strangely, because, if one is worth anything as a worker, its grip is on the soul. Part of me wants to escape, often wants to escape."
He remembered a morning ride, his desire of his "own place."
"The whole of me wants to escape," Nigel replied.
He looked about him. People were seeking "pleasure" in the darkness. He saw them standing at street corners, watchfully staring lest they should miss the form of joy. Cabs containing couples rolled by, disappeared towards north and south, disappeared into the darkness.