ot very dense Michael went up to
Piccadilly. Here the lamps were strong enough to shine through the murk
with a golden softness that made the Circus like a landscape seen in a
dying fire. Michael could not bear to withdraw from this glow in which
every human countenance was idealized as by amber limes in a theater. At
the O.U.D.S. performance of The Merchant of Venice they had been given a
sunset like this on the Rialto. It would be jolly to meet somebody from
Oxford to-night--Lonsdale, for instance. He looked round half expectant
of recognition; but there was only the shifting crowd about him. How
were Stella and Alan getting on at Compiegne? Probably they were having
clear blue days there, and in the forest would be a smell of woodfires.
With such unrelated thoughts Michael strolled round Piccadilly,
sometimes in a wider revolution turning up the darker side streets, but
always ultimately returning to the Island in the middle. Here he would
stand in a dream, watching the omnibuses go east and west and south and
north. The crowd grew stronger, for the people were coming out of the
theaters. Should he go to the Orange and talk to Daisy? Should he call a
hansom and drive home? Bewitched as by the spinning of a polychromatic
top, he could not leave the Island.

They were coming out of the Orient now, and he watched the women emerge
one by one. Their ankles all looked so white and frail under the
opera-cloaks puffed out with swans-down; and they all of them walked to
their carriages with the same knock-kneed little steps. Soon he must
begin to frequent the Orient again.

Suddenly Michael felt himself seized with the powerless excitement of a
nightmare. There in black, strolling nonchalantly across the pavement to
a hansom, was Lily! She was with another girl. Then Drake's story had
been true. Michael realized that gradually all this time he had been
slowly beginning to doubt whether Drake had ever seen her. Lily had
become like a princess in a fairy tale. Now she was here! He threw off
the stupefaction that was paralyzing him, and started to cross the road.
A wave of traffic swept up and he was driven back. When the stream had
passed, Lily was gone. In a rage with his silly indecision he set out to
walk back to Pimlico. The fog had lifted entirely, and there was frost
in the air.

Michael walked very quickly because it seemed the only way to wear out
his chagrin. How idiotic it had been to let himself be caught like that