"Why not both? The smartest coat has a lining, you know. I dare say there are velvet sins as well as plush sins, and the man who can find the velvet is the lucky fellow. Sins feel like plush to me, however, and I dislike plush. So I am not the lucky fellow."
"No, Valentine; you are wrong. I'm pretty sure all virtue is velvet and all vice is plush. So you stick to velvet."
"I don't know. Ask the next pretty dressmaker you meet. Bloomsbury is a genteel inferno on a wet night."
They traversed it smoothly on asphalt ways. All the time Valentine was watching Julian with a fixed and narrow scrutiny, which Julian failed to notice. The rows of dull houses seemed endless, and endlessly alike.
"I am sure all of them are full of solicitors," said Valentine.
Presently in many fanlights they saw the mystic legend, "Apartments." Then there were buildings that had an aged air and sported broken windows. Occasionally, on a background of red glass lit by a gas-jet from behind, sat the word "Hotel." A certain grimy degradation swam in the atmosphere of these streets. Their aspect was subtly different from the Bloomsbury thoroughfares, which look actively church-going, and are full of the shadows of an everlasting respectability which pays its water rates and sends occasional conscience-money to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. People looked furtive, and went in and out of the houses furtively. They crawled rather than pranced, and their bodies bore themselves with a depression that seemed indiscreet. Occasionally men with dripping umbrellas knocked at the doors under the red glass, and disappeared into narrow passages inhabited by small iron umbrella-stands. Night brooded here like a dyspeptic raven with moulting tail-feathers and ragged wings. But London is eloquent of surprises. The cab turned a corner, and instantly they were in a wide and rain-swept street, long and straight, and lined with reserved houses, that shrank back from the publicity of the passing traffic at the end of narrow alleys protected by iron gates. Over many of these gates appeared lit arches of glass on which names were inscribed: "Albion Hotel," "Valetta Hotel," "Imperial Hotel," "Cosmopolitan Hotel,"—great names for small houses. These houses had front doors with glass panels, and all the panels glowed dimly with gas.
The cab flashed by them, and Julian read the fleeting names, until his eyes were suddenly saluted with "European Hotel."
Violently the cabman drew up. The smoking horse was squeezed upon its haunches, and its feet slithered harshly along the stones. It tried to sit down, was hauled up by the reins, and stood trembling as the right wheel of the cab collided with the pavement edge, and the water in the gutter splashed up as if projected from a spray.
"Beg pardon, gents. I thought it was a bit further on," said the cabby, leering down cheerfully. "Nice night, sir, ain't it?"
He shook the reluctant drops of moisture from his waterproof-shrouded hat, and drove off.