"It's wonderful how wrong quite clever people can be," she said at length. "I was miserable, I wanted to be kissed, I was hungry for the smallest crumb of affection. I wanted to be happy.… And you can only see me as neurotic. D'you feel you're a good judge?"
"Of happiness?"
Eric smiled complacently and again glanced lovingly round the room. Barbara sighed in pity and looked at her watch.
"I seem to have come in the way rather," she interrupted.
"The butterfly that settles on the railway track may be said, I suppose, to come in the way of a train.… I'm going to take you home now."
"You're not sorry I came? I'm not."
"It was worth while meeting you," he laughed.
As Eric struggled with the sleeves of his coat, she twined her arms round his neck. The scent of carnations was now faintly blended with the deeper fragrance of the single rose behind her ear.
"And you'd never kissed any one before," she whispered.
It was nearly day-light when they found themselves in the street. Two special constables, striding resonantly home, looked curiously at them; but Barbara had again pulled up her shawl until it covered half her face. Piccadilly was at the mercy of scavengers with glistening black waders and pitiless hoses; otherwise they seemed to have all London to themselves.