she would say; "to be just us
two together for a little while." And, "What good _does_ it do to keep
on?" when Lewisham was pressing. Lewisham wanted very much to keep on
at times, but the good of it was a little hard to demonstrate. So his
knowledge of the situation remained imperfect and the weeks drifted
by.

Wonderfully varied were those seven-and-sixty nights, as he came to
remember in after life. There were nights of damp and drizzle, and
then thick fogs, beautiful, isolating, grey-white veils, turning every
yard of pavement into a private room. Grand indeed were these fogs,
things to rejoice at mightily, since then it was no longer a thing for
public scorn when two young people hurried along arm in arm, and one
could do a thousand impudent, significant things with varying pressure
and the fondling of a little hand (a hand in a greatly mended glove of
cheap kid). Then indeed one seemed to be nearer that elusive something
that threaded it all together. And the dangers of the street corners,
the horses looming up suddenly out of the dark, the carters with
lanterns at their horses' heads, the street lamps, blurred, smoky
orange at one's nearest, and vanishing at twenty yards into dim haze,
seemed to accentuate the infinite need of protection on the part of a
delicate young lady who had already traversed three winters of fogs,
thornily alone. Moreover, one could come right down the quiet street
where she lived, halfway to the steps of her house, with a delightful
sense of enterprise.

The fogs passed all too soon into a hard frost, into nights of
starlight and presently moonlight, when the lamps looked hard,
flashing like rows of yellow gems, and their reflections and the glare
of the shop windows were sharp and frosty, and even the stars hard and
bright, snapping noiselessly (if one may say so) instead of
twinkling. A jacket trimmed with imitation Astrachan replaced Ethel's
lighter coat, and a round cap of Astrachan her hat, and her eyes shone
hard and bright, and her forehead was broad and white beneath it. It
was exhilarating, but one got home too soon, and so the way from
Chelsea to Clapham was lengthened, first into a loop of side streets,
and then when the first pulverulent snows told that Christmas was at
hand, into a new loop down King's Road, and once even through the
Brompton Road and Sloane Street, where the shops were full of
decorations and entertaining things.

And, under circumstances of infinite gr