broken from the main torrent and were trickling away in various
directions. Rounding the corner he saw he was not too late. There,
standing on the curb, were Aunt Ellen and Chrystie, conspicuous in their
ornamental clothes, looking in the opposite direction up the street's
animated vista. He followed their eyes and saw a sight that made him
halt--Lorry, her satin-slippered feet stepping delicately along the
grimy pavements, her pale skirts emerging from the rich sheath of her
cloak. Beside her, responding to a beckoning hand, a carriage rattled
down upon Chrystie and Aunt Ellen. They had a carriage and she had had
to go and find it!

With a heart seared by flaming self-scorn, Mark turned and slunk away. He
slid into the crowd's enveloping darkness as into a friendly shelter. He
wanted to hide from them, crawl off unseen like the worm he was. This was
the least violent term he applied to himself as he walked home, cursing
under his breath, wondering if in the length and breadth of the land
there lived a greater fool than he. There _was_ a mitigating
circumstance--he had never dreamed of their having a carriage. In his
experience carriages, like clergymen, were only associated with weddings
and funerals. He thought of it afterward in his room, but it didn't help
much--in fact it only accentuated the difference between them. Girls who
had carriages when they went to the Albion were not the kind for lawyers'
clerks to dream of.

Inside the carriage, Aunt Ellen insisted on an understanding with the
livery stable man:

"Running about in the mud in the middle of the night--it's ridiculous!
Lorry, are your slippers spoiled?"