"You're going the wrong way," he said.
She stopped irresolutely, and had to make way for two or three hurrying people, to pass.
"Oh, Frankie! I can't!" she wailed softly.
"Come!" said Frank, and took her by the arm once more.
Five minutes later they stood together half-way down a certain long lane that turns out of Chiswick High Street to the left, and there, for the first time, she seems to have been genuinely frightened. The street was quite empty; the entire walking population was parading up and down the brightly-lit thoroughfare a hundred yards behind them, or feverishly engaged in various kinds of provision shops. The lamps were sparse in this lane, and all was comparatively quiet.
"Oh, Frankie!" she moaned again. "I can't! I can't!... I daren't!"
She leaned back against the sill of a window.
Yet, even then, I believe she was rather enjoying herself. It was all so extremely like the sort of plays over which she had been accustomed to shed tears. The Prodigal's Return! And on Christmas Eve! It only required a little snow to be falling and a crying infant at her breast....
I wonder what Frank made of it. He must have known Gertie thoroughly well by now, and certainly there is not one sensible man in a thousand whose gorge would not have risen at the situation. Yet I doubt whether Frank paid it much attention.
"Where's the house?" he said.