He was moved by the passion which she still had for him.  He felt vaguely and yet acutely an undischarged obligation in regard to her.  It was the first time he had met her in such circumstances.  A constraint fell between them.  In five minutes she would have been in her Promenade engaged upon her highly technical business, displaying her attractions while appearing to protect herself within a virginal timidity (for this was her natural method).  In any case, even had he not set forth on purpose to find her, he could scarcely have accompanied her to the doors of the theatre and there left her to the night’s routine.  They both hesitated, and then, without a word, he turned aside and she followed close, acquiescent by training and by instinct.  Knowing his sure instinct for what was proper, she knew at once that hazard had saved her from the night’s routine, and she was full of quiet triumph.  He, of course, though absolutely loyal to her, had for dignity’s sake to practise the duplicity of pretending to make up his mind what he should do.

They went through the Tube station and were soon in one of the withdrawn streets between Coventry Street and Pall Mall East.  The episode had somehow the air of an adventure.  He looked at her; the hat was possibly rather large, but, in truth, she was the image of refinement, delicacy, virtue, virtuous surrender.  He thought it was marvellous that there should exist such a woman as she.  And he thought how marvellous was the protective vastness of the town, beneath whose shield he was free—­free to live different lives simultaneously, to make his own laws, to maintain indefinitely exciting and delicious secrecies.  Not half a mile off were Concepcion and Queen, and his amour was as safe from them as if he had hidden it in the depths of some hareemed Asiatic city.

Christine said politely: 

“But I detain thee?”

“As for that,” he replied, “what does that matter, after all?”

“Thou knowest,” she said in a new tone, “I am all that is most worried.  In this London they are never willing to leave you in peace.”

“What is it, my poor child?” he asked benevolently.

“They talk of closing the Promenade,” she answered.

“Never!” he murmured easily, reassuringly.

He remembered the night years earlier when, as a protest against some restrictive action of a County Council, the theatre of varieties whose Promenade rivalled throughout the whole world even the Promenade of the Folies-Bergere, shut its doors and darkened its blazing facade, and the entire West End seemed to go into a kind of shocked mourning.  But the next night the theatre had reopened as usual and the Promenade had been packed.  Close the Promenades!  Absurd!  Not the full bench of archbishops and bishops could close the Promenades!  The thing was inconceivable, especially in war-time, when human nature was so human.

“But it is quite serious!” she cried.  “Everyone speaks of it....  What idiots!  What frightful lack of imagination!  And how unjust!  What do they suppose we are going to do, we other women?  Do they intend to put respectable women like me on to the pavement?  It is a fantastic idea!  Fantastic!...  And the night-clubs closing too!”