In Peter's Row not a sound could be heard save now and then the faint mutter of a far-off cab or the bark of a distant dog.
The lights in the dining-room where supper had been served were out. All the guests and servants had long since retired to their rooms. All the servants and most of the guests had gone to rest.
The back of the hotel commanded a view of the cathedral. One of the finest sights in London is the sun rising behind St. Paul's while you are high at the western side. There is something triumphant and terrible in the sight. It seems as if the cathedral would crumble away, and disclose in the fiery core of dawn the intolerable Judgment Seat.
But by night, when there is no moon, and one is near enough to be impressed by the stupendous proportions of the building, and yet far enough away to yield it grandeur in losing detail, the feeling is one of melancholy. The dome seems a buoy set to mark the site where millions of men have been overwhelmed by darkness and drowned, because of their rejection of spiritual light.
In the back of the hotel two people were still awake, a man and a woman.
The man was in his bedroom. His gas was turned up. He was sitting astride a chair and, contrary to the rules of the house, smoking a cigar. His arms were folded on the back of his chair, his chin rested on his arms. His face at the best was not handsome. This attitude made it almost repulsive. His thoughts ran:
"By Jove, didn't she look well! Never seen anything like it in my life, and I've seen a few good-looking girls. Miss Gordon wasn't in it with her, and Miss G. isn't a bad-looking girl. But that beautiful, pale, sad, round face, and her eyes--her soft sad eyes! As some fellow put it, she 'is as pure as the saints on high, and never was saint so fair.' But I'm not a poet. I don't think like a poet; I don't look like a poet; I don't eat or drink like a poet. I suppose, as there is the seed of every disease in man, there's the seed of poetry in me. Where they put the blessed seed I don't know. What's the good of a seed that's in some cupboard if you don't know which, and when only four out of eight of the keys you have fit the locks? It's discouraging. I suppose every fellow thinks of poetry when he sees a face like hers. I wonder if a member of the London board of actuaries saw a face like that, what kind of poetry would he think of. Maybe he wouldn't think of poetry at all. Perhaps he'd try to estimate the superficial area of her face, allowing of course for the eyes. If I knew any figure-painter, I think I'd ask him to paint her and me as Psyche and Adonis. I'd get up an appropriate expression like this," he said to himself, throwing away the butt of his cigar, contorting his face until he was positively hideous, and then approaching the glass with a burlesque mincing gait. When he saw his reflection in the glass he laughed aloud. Then he undressed, put out the light, and went to bed.