ANGEL PAVEMENT

there was always a man in this adventure, and now that
it offered itself and she had accepted it, she could not run
away. Yet there was a creature in her, and not merely
a brain phantom, but a creature that had some of her
rich blood flowing through it, that very blood which this
coarse, middle-aged man could so inspire that it dazzled
and inflamed her, a shrinking and fastidious creature
that cried to run away, to run away and hide. It pro-
tested against the shabbiness and furtiveness of this
adventure, and pounced upon the sinister lack of fair-
ness in it. It loathed the cheap imitation wedding ring
that was now tucked away in her bag, a ring that was
part of the adventure, and that had seemed rather a joke
when it first had been mentioned last Tuesday. She had
heard about those rings before, and they had always
seemed rather a joke, perky, glittering little stage
properties in amusing escapades, and it was not difficult
for her to force herself to see that ring in her bag in the
same theatrical light; but, nevertheless, the protest was
not silenced and the loathing remained. If Golspie had
asked her to marry him, no matter if he had told her
that they would have to settle in the most outlandish
place, she would have agreed; but he had not asked her
to marry him, Yet he wanted her, not idly either, and,
when all was said and done, that was a heartening and
exciting fact; and after this, he might want her still more,
the last traces of self-sufficiency in him (and he had
appeared unusually self-sufficient at first, and that had
made him all the more attractive) might vanish, and
then—well, everything might be different.

If you delight in movement and change, the appeal of
a large railway station is irresistible; you are still in the
dark cocoon in the City, but one end is splintering