Rachel now understood better the symbolic meaning of the glare in the sky caused at night by the determination of the Imperial to make itself known.  She had been brought up to believe that, gas being dear, no opportunity should be lost of turning a jet down, and that electricity was so dear as to be inconceivable in any house not inhabited by crass spendthrift folly.  She now saw electricity scattered about as though it were as cheap as salt.  She saw written in electric fire across the inner entrance the beautiful sentiment, “Our aim is to please YOU.”  The “you” had two lines of fire under it.  She saw, also, the polite nod of the official, dressed not less glitteringly than an Admiral of the Fleet in full uniform, whose sole duty in life was to welcome and reassure the visitor.  All this in Bursley, which even by Knype was deemed an out-of-the-world spot and home of sordid decay!  In Hanbridge she would have been less surprised to discover such marvels, because the flaunting modernity of Hanbridge was notorious.  And her astonishment would have been milder had she had been in the habit of going out at night.  Like all those who never went out at night, she had quite failed to keep pace with the advancing stride of the Five Towns on the great road of civilization.

More impressive still than the extreme radiance about her was the easy and superb gesture of Louis as, swinging the reticule containing pineapple, cocoa, and cutlets, he slid his hand into his pocket and drew therefrom a coin and smacked it on the wooden ledge of the ticket-window—­gesture of a man to whom money was naught provided he got the best of everything.  “Two!” he repeated, with slight impatience, bending down so as to see the young woman in white who sat in another world behind gilt bars.  He was paying for Rachel!  Exquisite experience for the daughter and sister of Fleckrings!  Experience unique in her career!  And it seemed so right and yet so wondrous, that he should pay for her!...  He picked up the change, and without a glance at them dropped the coins into his pocket.  It was a glorious thing to be a man!  But was it not even more glorious to be a girl and the object of his princely care?...  They passed a heavy draped curtain, on which was a large card, “Tea-Room,” and there seemed to be celestial social possibilities behind that curtain, though indeed it bore another and smaller card:  “Closed after six o’clock”—­the result of excessive caution on the part of a kill-joy Town Council.  A boy in the likeness of a midshipman took halves of the curving tickets and dropped them into a tin box, and then next Rachel was in a sudden black darkness, studded here and there with minute glowing rubies that revealed the legend:  “Exit.  Exit.  Exit.”