But last spring I met the girl in the flat below me. Her name was Elsie--Winwood, I think. Of one thing, however, I am sure; she had cold grey eyes and auburn hair--an uncanny combination; but she was typical of the English girl, the girl who had been educated abroad. This girl and I came face to face on the stairs one day.
"Why do you always leave London at the best time of the year?" she asked me.
"I am young," I confessed. "In the spring I live by night, and one may only sleep in London at night."
"But you do not know London," she told me.
She smiled intimatingly and disappeared into the gloom of her studio.
That night I thought of Arthur Symons's "London Nights." Nobody in any city in the world had more subtly caught the spirit of youthful buoyancy, the spirit of romantic evanescence, the spirit of midnight abandon. Could it be that he was but a "poseur," a dealer in false words, a concocter of the non-existent? Did the eyes of dancers never gleam in his? Did Renée never issue forth from that dim arch-way where he waited? Did Nora never dance upon the pavement? Was Violet but the figment of a poet's dreams? And was that painted angel, Peppina, a mere psychic snare? Could any man--even a poet--write as he did of Muriel at the Opera if there had been no Muriel? It seemed highly improbable. Finally I decided that, ere departing for Reine or Anna or Bianca, I would sally forth into the night of London and see if, after all, romance did not lurk in the darkened corners.
At first I started without a guide, trusting to my own knowledge of the city, intending to follow up vague rumours to which I had lent but half an ear. Later I equipped myself with a guide--not a professional guide, but a man of means and of easy morals, a young barrister in whose family were R. A.'s, M. P.'s and K. C.'s.
"All," I replied. "From the high to the low."
We set forth. It was eleven o'clock, and the theatregoers were swarming in the Strand. We were heading for a great arch of incandescent light.
I was beginning to be disappointed. Visions of the dark-eyed Reine, in veils of mauve and orange, silhouetted against the synchromatic scenery of the Marigny swam before my eyes. I gave vent to a cavernous yawn. I had often had supper at the Savoy. But such a performance was not my idea of romance. I had never considered that luxurious dining room in the light of adventure. But with Leonard's suggestion I entered and found that, when the mental lenses are focused correctly, it in truth possesses much of that same gorgeousness and lavish spirit which no doubt invested the banquets of Belshazzar.
