Chapter II

He told himself that he ought to do some work, but the desire to see more of London overcame his good resolution, and so he left the house and set out again for the town. He hoped that he might see Eleanor Moore. If he were to go to the tea-shop at the same hour as she had entered it yesterday, he might contrive to seat himself at her table again, and this time perhaps she would listen to him. When he reached the City, he found that he was too early for the mid-day meal, and so he resolved to go and stand about the entrance to the office where Eleanor Moore was employed. He would see her coming out of it and could follow discreetly after her.... But although he waited for an hour, she did not appear, nor was she to be seen in the tea-shop, when, tired and disappointed, he took his place in it. He dallied over his meal, hoping every moment that she would turn up, but at length he had to go away without seeing her. At teatime, he told himself, he would come again and wait for her. He climbed on to a 'bus and let himself be taken to Charing Cross, where he enquired the way to the National Gallery. He wandered through the rooms until his eyes ached with looking at the pictures and his feet were sore with walking on the polished floors. He felt self-conscious when he looked at the nudes, and he blushed when he found a woman standing by his side as he looked at the portrait of Jean Arnolfini and Jeanne his wife by van Eyck. He turned hotly away, and wondered that there was no blush on the face of the woman. In Ballyards, a man always pretended not to see a woman about to have a child ... unless, of course, he was with other men and the woman could not see him, when he would crack jokes about her condition!... Here, however, people actually exhibited pictures of pregnant women in a public place where all sorts, old and young, male and female, could look at them ... and no one appeared to mind. It might be all right, of course, and after all a woman in that way was natural enough ... but he had been brought up to be ashamed of seeing such things, and he could not very well become easy about them in a moment.... And he became very tired of Holy Families and Crucifixions!...

"I'll walk back to the place," he said to himself as he left the Gallery and crossed Trafalgar Square. He dappled his fingers in the water of one of the fountains, and listened to two little Cocknies wrangling together....

"They've a queer way of talking," he said to himself.

...and then he started off down the Strand towards Fleet Street and the City. Eleanor Moore was not in the tea-shop when he entered it, nor did she come into it while he remained there. He finished his meal and walked in the direction of the Royal Exchange and just as he was running out of the way of a 'bus, he saw her going towards the stairs leading into the Tube.

"There she is," he murmured and hurried after her.

She was at the foot of the stairs when he reached the top of them, and when he had got to the foot of them, she was almost at the entrance to the booking-office of the Tube. He tried to get near her so that he might speak to her, but the press of people going home prevented him from doing so. He saw her go down the steps and take her place in the queue of people purchasing tickets, and he walked across to the bookstall and stood there until she had obtained her ticket. Then as she walked to the lift, he moved towards her. She was examining her change as she walked along, and did not see him until he was close to her. He meant to say, "Oh, Miss Moore, may I speak to you for a moment!" but suddenly he became totally inarticulate, and while he was struggling to say something, she looked up and saw him. She started slightly, then her face became flushed, and she hurried forward and joined the group of wedged people in the lift. He determined to follow her, but while he was resolving to do so, the lift attendant shouted, "Next lift, please!" and pulled the gates together. He watched the light disappear from the little windows at the top of the gates!...

"I've missed her again," he said.