One of the women was hung with wreaths of mourning.
Ahead of him the late twilight darkened behind a great arch, which
seemed to rise on the horizon of the world, a great window into the
heavens beyond. At either side strings of white and colored globes
hung among the trees, and the sound of music came joyfully from
theatres in the open air. He knew the restaurant under the trees to
which he was now hastening, and the fountain beside it, and the very
sparrows balancing on the fountain's edge; he knew every waiter at
each of the tables, he felt again the gravel crunching under his feet,
he saw the _maitre d'hotel_ coming forward smiling to receive his
command, and the waiter in the green apron bowing at his elbow,
deferential and important, presenting the list of wines. But his
adventure never passed that point, for he was captured again and once
more bound to his cot with a close burning sheet.
Or else, he drove more sedately through the London streets in the late
evening twilight, leaning expectantly across the doors of the hansom
and pulling carefully at his white gloves. Other hansoms flashed past
him, the occupant of each with his mind fixed on one idea--dinner. He
was one of a million of people who were about to dine, or who had
dined, or who were deep in dining. He was so famished, so weak for
food of any quality, that the galloping horse in the hansom seemed to
crawl. The lights of the Embankment passed like the lamps of a
railroad station as seen from the window of an express; and while his
mind was still torn between the choice of a thin or thick soup or an
immediate attack upon cold beef, he was at the door, and the
_chasseur_ touched his cap, and the little _chasseur_ put
the wicker guard over the hansom's wheel.
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