back to their own quarters, like beetles scurrying to their holes, for that old woman fairly hobbles towards Waterloo, grasping a shiny bag, as if she had been out into the light and now made off with some scraped chicken bones to her hovel underground.  On the other hand, though the wind is rough and blowing in their faces, those girls there, striding hand in hand, shouting out a song, seem to feel neither cold nor shame.  They are hatless.  They triumph.

The wind has blown up the waves.  The river races beneath us, and the men standing on the barges have to lean all their weight on the tiller.  A black tarpaulin is tied down over a swelling load of gold.  Avalanches of coal glitter blackly.  As usual, painters are slung on planks across the great riverside hotels, and the hotel windows have already points of light in them.  On the other side the city is white as if with age; St. Paul’s swells white above the fretted, pointed, or oblong buildings beside it.  The cross alone shines rosy-gilt.  But what century have we reached?  Has this procession from the Surrey side to the Strand gone on for ever?  That old man has been crossing the Bridge these six hundred years, with the rabble of little boys at his heels, for he is drunk, or blind with misery, and tied round with old clouts of clothing such as pilgrims might have worn.  He shuffles on.  No one stands still.  It seems as if we marched to the sound of music; perhaps the wind and the river; perhaps these same drums and trumpets—­the ecstasy and hubbub of the soul.  Why, even the unhappy laugh, and the policeman, far from judging the drunk man, surveys him humorously, and the little boys scamper back again, and the clerk from Somerset House has nothing but tolerance for him, and the man who is reading half a page of Lothair at the bookstall muses charitably, with his eyes off the print, and the girl hesitates at the crossing and turns on him the bright yet vague glance of the young.

Bright yet vague.  She is perhaps twenty-two.  She is shabby.  She crosses the road and looks at the daffodils and the red tulips in the florist’s window.  She hesitates, and makes off in the direction of Temple Bar.  She walks fast, and yet anything distracts her.  Now she seems to see, and now to notice nothing.

CHAPTER TEN

Through the disused graveyard in the parish of St. Pancras, Fanny Elmer strayed between the white tombs which lean against the wall, crossing the grass to read a name, hurrying on when the grave-keeper approached, hurrying into the street, pausing now by a window with blue china, now quickly making up for lost time, abruptly entering a baker’s shop, buying rolls, adding cakes, going on again so that any one wishing to follow must fairly trot.  She was not drably shabby, though.  She wore silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes, only the red feather in her hat drooped, and the clasp of her bag was weak, for out fell a copy of Madame Tussaud’s programme as she walked.  She had the ankles of a stag.  Her face was hidden.  Of course, in this dusk, rapid movements, quick glances, and soaring hopes come naturally enough.  She passed right beneath Jacob’s window.