As he listened and talked to the acquaintance his inner mind shifted with relief to the vision of Christine, contented and simple and compliant in her nest--Christine, at once restful and exciting, Christine, the exquisite symbol of acquiescence and response. What a contrast to Concepcion! It had been a bold and sudden stroke to lift Christine to another plane, but a stroke well justified and entirely successful, fulfilling his dream.
At this moment he noticed a figure pass the doorway in whose shadow he was, and he exclaimed within himself incredulously:
In the shortest possible delay he said "Good-night" to his acquaintance, and jumped down the steps and followed eastwards the figure. He followed warily, for already the strange and distressing idea had occurred to him that he must not overtake her--if she it was. It was she. He caught sight of her again in the thick obscurity by the prison-wall of Devonshire House. He recognised the peculiar brim of the new hat and the new "military" umbrella held on the wrist by a thong.
What was she doing abroad? She could not be going to a theatre. She had not a friend in London. He was her London. And la mère Gaston was not with her. Theoretically, of course, she was free. He had laid down no law. But it had been clearly understood between them that she should never emerge at night alone. She herself had promulgated the rule, for she had a sense of propriety and a strong sense of reality. She had belonged to the class which respectable, broadminded women, when they bantered G.J., always called "the pretty ladies," and as a postulant for respectability she had for her own satisfaction to mind her p's and q's. She could not afford not to keep herself above suspicion.
She had been a courtesan. Did she look like one? As an individual figure in repose, no! None could have said that she did. He had long since learnt that to decide always correctly by appearance, and apart from environment and gesture, whether an unknown woman was or was not a wanton, presented a task beyond the powers of even the completest experience. But Christine was walking in Piccadilly at night, and he soon perceived that she was discreetly showing the demeanour of a courtesan at her profession--she who had hated and feared the pavement! He knew too well the signs--the waverings, the turns of the head, the variations in speed, the scarcely perceptible hesitations, the unmistakable air of wandering with no definite objective.
