The clock struck seven.  The sound brought her to her feet.  She must go and dress.  Richard would be home directly, and they were dining out, to meet a distinguished General, in London for a few days’ leave from the front.  Dick must, of course, know nothing of Roger’s visit; and she must hurriedly go and look up the distinguished General’s career in case she had to sit next him.  Vehemently she put the preceding hour out of her mind.  The dinner-party to which she was going flattered her vanity.  It turned her cold to think that Roger might some day do something which would damage that “position” which she had built up for herself and her husband, by ten years’ careful piloting of their joint lives.  She knew she was called a “climber.”  She knew also that she had “climbed” successfully, and that it was Roger’s knowledge of the fact, combined with a horrid recklessness which seemed to be growing in him, that made the danger of the situation.

Meanwhile Delane stepped out into the fog, which, however, was lifting a little.  He made his way down into Piccadilly, which was crowded with folk, men and women hurrying home from their offices, and besieging the omnibuses—­with hundreds of soldiers too, most of them with a girl beside them, and smart young officers of every rank and service—­while the whole scene breathed an animation and excitement, which meant a common consciousness, in the crowd, of great happenings.  All along the street were men with newspapers, showing the headlines to passers-by.  “President Wilson’s answer to the German appeal expected to-morrow.”  “The British entry into Lille.”

Delane bought an Evening News, glanced at the headlines, and threw it away.  What did the war matter to him?—­or the new world that fools supposed to be coming after it?  Consumptives had a way, no doubt, of living longer than people expected—­or hoped.  Still, he believed that a couple of years or so would see him out.  And that being so, he felt a kind of malignant indifference towards this pushing, chattering world, aimlessly going about its silly business, as though there were any real interest or importance in it.

Then, as he drifted with the crowd, he found himself caught in a specially dense bit of it, which had gathered round some fallen horses.  A thin slip of a girl beside him, who was attempting to get through the crush, was roughly elbowed by a burly artilleryman determined to see the show.  She protested angrily, and Delane suddenly felt angry, too.  “You brute, you,—­let the lady pass!” he called to the soldier, who turned with a grin, and was instantly out of reach and sight.  “Take my arm,” said Delane to the girl—­“Where are you going?” The little thing looked up—­hesitated—­and took his arm.  “I’m going to get a bus at the Circus.”  “All right.  I’ll see you there.”  She laughed and flushed, and they walked on together.  Delane looked at her with curiosity.  High cheek-bones—­a red spot of colour on them—­a sharp chin—­small,