Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton Page A

definitely something else to be done, only the strongest minds can ever tear themselves away from this diversion.
    Half an hour later found Bob somewhere near the Hippodrome. . . .
    She would certainly feel honoured, he reflected, if she knew what he was doing. He went in and had a drink.
    He came out, walked into Leicester Square, and again up by Wardour Street into Shaftesbury Avenue – for the last time, he swore before Heaven (but he had already sworn before it) – and was just passing the Shaftesbury Theatre, when he discerned, on the other side of the street (just a few yards up Dean Street, in fact) a man in conversation with a woman. It was her.
    The two, so far as he could see, were just about to part. He stopped, retraced his footsteps, crossed the road, and strolled up again in her direction. He was delighted with himself for having found her, and was not going to let her go now.
    When he reached Dean Street again, the two were a yardaway from each other, and obviously having their final words. The man apparently intended to go up Dean Street, and she was coming down in Bob’s direction. Bob hesitated, and then stopped at the corner – waiting for her.
    All at once, however, the two joined again, to discuss something else. Bob stayed where he was, lit a cigarette, and looked self-consciously about him.
    Many people passed him, looking at him disinterestedly. A minute passed. The two were still in conversation.
    He suddenly perceived that he had been trailing the streets for an hour for this girl, and was now awaiting her pleasure. It gave him rather a shock. He could not understand his own motives.
    The two broke away, and she came down towards him. She was smiling, and, it seemed to him, breathlessly pretty. There was no doubt about that. He knew it already.
    ‘Saw you standin’ there,’ she said.

C HAPTER XVI
    H E WAS AT a loss, and anxious to maintain his dignity. He smiled and took her hand.
    ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Saw you standin’ there, an’ thought I might’s well wait. Fancy meetin’ you, of all people!’
    They were walking down towards the Palace. He saw, from her silence, that his assumed detachment had not quite washed, and waited for an opportunity to rectify matters. She wanted putting in her place. Seeing that she had not been in to see him, she had, really, no right to be alive – let alone calmly at large like this.
    ‘’Spect you’re wondering why I haven’t been in,’ she said, in her amiable drawl.
    ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘Never noticed it, as a matter of fact.’
    Now he had gone and overdone it. He had been deliberately rude.
    ‘Why weren’t you in, anyway?’ he asked, trying to pull himself out.
    ‘Don’t know, dear. Couldn’t get away, I suppose.’
    She was angry. Unwarrantably and ungratefully angry, in view of all he had done for her, but there you were. He wasn’t going to have any of her cheek, though. With him she had no right to be anything but submissive. He saw that the whole thing would probably end here.
    ‘I been busy, too,’ he said. . . .
    They walked on in silence until they reached the Palace. There she suddenly stopped.
    ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I got to be going somewhere now, I’m afraid.’
    He had never thought she would go as far as this, and he was staggered by her impudence. Apparently he had been right. It was going to end here. All the little excitement of it, and intrigue, and fun, and sentimental stimulation, was over. Henceforward his life would be exactly as it was before – something uninspired by this little diversion. He would never see her again. She was a breathlessly pretty young woman, and he was letting her slip out into the night. He could not do it. He gave in.
    ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Must you?’
    ‘’Fraid I must,’ she drawled.
    Bob’s fate hung in the balance. Could he submit to this second affront? She had managed to strike him down with her first talk of departure: now she had kicked him. He had either to grovel,