And as the months went on he saw less and less of her. Though he was punctual at their corner in Oxford Street, he was always too late to find Winny there. He gave that up, and began to haunt the door in Starker's iron shutter at closing-time. He had found out that girl clerks, what with chattering and putting on their hats and things, were always a good ten minutes later than the men. He had seen fellows (fellows from Woolridge's, some of them) hanging round the shutters of the big draperies to meet the girls. By making a dash for it from Woolridge's he could reach Starker's just in time to catch Winny as she came out, delicately stepping through the little door in the great iron shutter.
Evening after evening he was there and never caught her. She was off before he could get through the door in his own shutter.
Then (it was one evening in August) he saw her. He was not making a dash for it; he was strolling casually and without hope in the direction of Starker's, and he saw her walking away, arm in arm with another girl, a girl he had never seen before. He would have overtaken them but that the presence of the girl deterred him.
He followed, losing them in the crowd, recovering, losing them again; then they turned northward up a side street and were gone. He noticed that the strange girl was taller than Winny by the head and shoulders, and that she went lazily, deliberately, with sudden lingerings, and always with a curious swinging movement of her hips. He had been close upon Winny at the corner as they turned, so close that he could have touched her. He thought she had seen him, but he could not be sure. He was also aware of a large eye slued round toward him in a pretty profile that lifted itself, deep-chinned, above Winny's head. Their behavior agitated him, but he forbore to track them further. Decency told him that that would be dishonorable.
The next evening and the next he watched the door in the iron shutter, and was too late for Winny. But the third evening he saw her standing by the door and talking to the same strange girl. The girl had her back to him, but Winny faced him. She was not aware of him at first; but, at the signal that he gave, she turned sharply and went from him, drawing the girl with her, arm in arm.