The other little tables emptied one by one.

“George,” she said, “take me somewhere where we can dance!”

George stared at her.

“My dear girl, how can I?  There is no such place!”

“Take me to your Bohemians!”

“You can’t possibly go to a place like that.”

“Why not?  Who cares where we go, or what we do?”

“I care!”

“Ah, my dear George, you and your sort are only half alive!”

Sullenly George answered: 

“What do you take me for?  A cad?”

But there was fear, not anger, in his heart.

“Well, then, let’s drive into the East End.  For goodness’ sake, let’s do something not quite proper!”

They took a hansom and drove East.  It was the first time either had ever been in that unknown land.

“Close your cloak, dear; it looks odd down here.”

Mrs. Bellew laughed.

“You’ll be just like your father when you’re sixty, George.”

And she opened her cloak the wider.  Round a barrel-organ at the corner of a street were girls in bright colours dancing.

She called to the cabman to stop.

“Let’s watch those children!”

“You’ll only make a show of us.”

Mrs. Bellew put her hands on the cab door.

“I’ve a good mind to get out and dance with them!”

“You’re mad to-night,” said George.  “Sit still!”

He stretched out his arm and barred her way.  The passers-by looked curiously at the little scene.  A crowd began to collect.

“Go on!” cried George.

There was a cheer from the crowd; the driver whipped his horse; they darted East again.

It was striking twelve when the cab put them down at last near the old church on Chelsea Embankment, and they had hardly spoken for an hour.

And all that hour George was feeling: 

’This is the woman for whom I’ve given it all up.  This is the woman to whom I shall be tied.  This is the woman I cannot tear myself away from.  If I could, I would never see her again.  But I can’t live without her.  I must go on suffering when she’s with me, suffering when she’s away from me.  And God knows how it’s all to end!’

He took her hand in the darkness; it was cold and unresponsive as a stone.  He tried to see her face, but could read nothing in those greenish eyes staring before them, like a cat’s, into the darkness.

When the cab was gone they stood looking at each other by the light of a street lamp.  And George thought: 

‘So I must leave her like this, and what then?’

She put her latch-key in the door, and turned round to him.  In the silent, empty street, where the wind was rustling and scraping round the corners of tall houses, and the lamplight flickered, her face and figure were so strange, motionless, Sphinx-like.  Only her eyes seemed alive, fastened on his own.