ho lacked the energy for initial impetus, remained. The shops
had been closed, and the sunlight beat upon the shuttered eyelids of
their windows on the Phryne side of Piccadilly. By that hour on
Saturday afternoon Regent Street and Piccadilly were wearing almost a
Sunday appearance; Ranelagh and Hurlingham and the new club at
Roehampton were crowded with smart people, and for hours past trains
from Paddington and Waterloo had been carrying thousands of
Panama-hatted, white-trousered men and summer-clad women riverwards.
Though the shops were closed, some belated workers, in ones or twos or
threes, continued to dribble out from their doors.

Going westward, along Piccadilly, a slight, dark-haired young girl
stepped out from one. She was dressed in a thin white blouse that
showed the outline of her arms and shoulders; she did not join the
crowd of others who were scaling the 'buses on the opposite side of
the street, but turned to walk along the pavement parkwards. One fell
to speculating as to why she walked. There was no spring or elasticity
in her step as if she were doing so for the enjoyment of the
exercise. Her feet, in boots with heels slightly rounded on the
outside, seemed to drag on that hot pavement. Possibly the 'bus fare
was an item of consideration, even though she looked as if she had
spent all the morning on her feet in the shop. With thick, dark hair
and good eyes, it would have taken very little aid in the way of dress
to make her appear quite good-looking. As it was, men turned to look
at her as she passed, and one even came across the street, followed,
and leered at her as he came abreast; she held on the even tenor of
her way, taking no notice of them. On, past the clubs, through the
street vocal with the clanking stamp of the horses' hoofs--horses with
shining flanks, who cocked their ears, and tossed their foam-dripping
mouths as they passed the water-trough.

Wooden stands here and there still disfigured some of the house
fronts, and here and there a red pole, looking like a sugar-stick that
a child had been sucking, stood as a memento of one of the most
hideous schemes of tawdry decoration that a civilised city has ever
shown.

At Hyde Park corner she turned in towards the trees, following the
stream-crowd direction of other pedestrians. She stopped near the
railings, watching the procession of carriages going by. A girl, so
like herself that they might almost have been sisters, passed in a
hi