The man Yaverland had put out his great ham of a hand and hailed a cab.  When Mr. Philip tried to stop a cab he usually had to run alongside it, and often the driver was most impudent, but this swaggering bully checked the thing on the instant, and handed in Ellen and drove off in style as if he was a duke with his duchess in their own carriage.  What did they want in a cab anyway?  He followed the black trundling square on its spidery wheels as it turned round by the Register House to cross the North Bridge, and imagined the fine carryings on they were doubtless having in the dark in there.  He called Ellen a name he had not thought of before.

There was nothing to be done about it.  He stood for a while at the railing of that strange garden of concrete walks and raised parterres and ventilating-shafts that lies at this end of Princes Street, built on the roof of the sunk market.  Its rectilinear aspect pleased him.  It was not romantic, the gates were locked, and one could be sure that there were no lovers trysting there.  Presently he moved along towards the West End, keeping still on the side of the street where there were no men and girls prancing about and grinning at each other like dirty apes under the lights, but only empty gardens with locked gates.  What had those two been doing?  They had come in by train.  Unless they had travelled a very long journey it must have been dark before they started.  They had been in the country alone together when it was quite dark.  There came to him memories of sounds he had once heard when walking through a twilit wood, the crackling of twigs, a little happy cry of distress, and again the crackling of twigs; he had been compelled by something, which was not specially in him but was a part of the damned way life went, to stand and listen, though he knew it was not decent.  He saw before him Ellen’s face lying white on her spilt red hair, and it added to his anguish that he could not see it clearly, but had to peer at this enraging vision because he could not make out what her expression would be.  He had seen her look a thousand ways during these last few weeks when she had kept on drawing his attention to her with her simpering girl’s tricks, but he could not imagine how she would look then.  It seemed as if she were defying his imagination as she defied him every day in the office, and he turned his mind away from the matter in a frenzy, but began soon to wonder what those two had been doing.  They had come in by train.  Unless they had travelled a very long journey it must have been dark before they started....

He knew he must not go on like this, and looked round him.  He had passed the classic portico of the Art Gallery and was walking now by the wilder section of the gardens, where the street lights shone back from the shining leaves of bushes and made them look like glazed paper, and with their glare made the trees behind seem such flat canvas trees as they set about the stage at theatres when there is need for a romantic glade for a lovers’ meeting.  How often had Ellen met Yaverland?