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He was no longer a fretful conflict of nerves, but
if anything he was less happy than he had been before. It seemed to
him that London was a desolate and inglorious growth.
London ten years ago was much less nocturnal than it is now. And
not so brightly lit. Down the long streets came no traffic but an
occasional hansom. Here and there a cat halted or bolted in the
road. Near Piccadilly a policeman hovered artfully in a doorway,
and then came a few belated prostitutes waylaying the passers-by,
and a few youths and men, wearily lust driven.
As he turned up New Bond Street he saw a figure that struck him as
familiar. Surely!--it was Billy Prothero! Or at any rate it was
astonishingly like Billy Prothero. He glanced again and the
likeness was more doubtful. The man had his back to Benham, he was
halting and looking back at a woman.
By some queer flash of intuition it came to Benham that even if this
was not Prothero, still Prothero did these things. It might very
well be Prothero even, though, as he now saw, it wasn't. Everybody
did these things.


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