The sun was setting and the river was bathed in golden light. Over all lay a spell broken only by bird-songs. Men and women walked slowly; a succession of lovers wandered arm-in-arm; automobiles moved quietly; and occasionally a pair of horses trotted briskly by, drawing a mistress who clung, for this hour at least, to the vehicle of an older time. But Amos saw neither the river nor the pedestrians nor heard the bird-songs; his eyes were fixed ahead searching for a figure which had already vanished.
When he reached Ellen's habitation a sheltering twilight had fallen and he sat down on a bench in the park. He saw lights shine here and there and he thought that she might be lighting them, though his idea of her duties was still vague. After a while he hid his face in his hands. The ways of the world, the quickening of the pulse as night drew on, the intercourse of delicate, silken-clad women and predatory men, the prospect of fond assignations, the eluding of watchful wives and guardians--it was the world of Evelyn Innes and Anna Karenina in which Ellen was moving, though only a narrow space of street and wall divided her from him. He felt that he should go mad.
Presently he saw that a car had glided into place before the Lanfair house. The door opened and let out a soft glow and at once a tall man and a short woman came down the steps and drove away. The man helped his companion into the car with careful solicitude--it was, except for one, the last drive which Stephen and Hilda were to have together. Amos saw himself and Ellen going thus happily.
When it was quite dark he rose and went on his way, past other handsome houses to a cross-street by which he approached the square. There again he stood still as though his powers of locomotion were sufficient to carry him only a short distance. The large, open space wore an air of festivity. In the center, as from the center of a spider's web, street-cars started to suburban districts, and round this center circled perpetually the gleaming lights of automobiles. In a still wider circle coincident with the pavement moved the human throng. At the curb stood more or less permanent groups held by the eloquence of a traveling quack or soap-vender.