And then--Valentine and Julian were in the
comparative dimness of Shaftesbury Avenue--a huge red cross on a black
background started out of the gloom above a playhouse. Julian shuddered
at it visibly.
"You are quite unstrung to-night, Julian," Valentine said. "Let us turn
the cab round and go home."
"No, no, my dear fellow; I am all right. It is only that I see things
to-night much more clearly than usual. I suppose it is owing to something
physical that every side of London seems to have sprung into prominence.
Of course I go about every day in Piccadilly, St. James's Street,
everywhere; but it is as if my eyes had been always shut, and now they
are open. I can see London to-night. And that cross looked so devilishly
ironical up there, as if it were silently laughing at the tumult in the
rain. Don't you feel London to-night, too, Valentine?"
"I always feel it."
"Tragically or comically?"
"I don't know that I could say truly either. Calmly or contemptuously
would rather be the word."
"You are always a philosopher. I can't be a philosopher when I see
those hordes of women standing hour after hour in the rain, and those
boys searching among them. I should be one of those boys probably but
for you.
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