"Oh, bother! Cheneston, you're just too late! That was Pam
Burbridge--only she isn't any more, she's married, and her husband is
outside in a car."
And as I hurried out into the courtyard a woman getting out of a car
said:
"Look at that woman; isn't she wonderful!"
Of course it was Grace; if it had been me she would have said:
"Look at that funny little moth-eaten rabbit of a girl hurrying away as
if there was a stoat after her. You really do see the queerest people
everywhere nowadays."
*XVI*
There is a street that leads round the back of the Savoy Theatre. I ran
down that. I don't know what it was like. There were great inky
splotches of shadow, they seemed almost glistening wet in their
impenetrable blackness. As a rule I mind these pools of darkness. I
cross roads to avoid them, and if I must needs pass through them I hurry
very quickly and my heart seems to beat in my throat.
This night I did not care; mad kaffirs, Landrus, the denizens of Soho,
might nestle in their dozens in the shadows of London--I didn't care.
You can get so absolutely don't-carish that the things that normally
terrify and appal you fail even to rouse a flicker.