Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/28

, hanging as still and lifeless as though they had been stencilled from sheets of green copper. His eyes fell on floating street-signs, blurs of coloured electrics cut off from the in visible walls which backed them. He caught glimpses of the softened bulbs of automatic signs, like moving gold-fish seen through frosted glass. Then he saw more lights, serried lights, subdued into balloons of misty pearl. They threaded the façade of some gigantic hotel, like jewel-strings about the throat of a barbaric woman. But he could not remember the place. And again he floundered on towards the water-front, disquieted with vague and foolish thoughts, as much oppressed by the orderly streets as though he were escaping from some sea-worn harbour slum of vice and outlawry. He still wanted his cabin, as a long-harried chipmunk wants its tree-hole.

He was well out of it, he told himself reassuringly, though he still kept wondering why the woman had stopped him. He remembered details of her dress, the sense of assurance and well-being in her mere figure poise, the open way in which her eyes had met his. He began to wonder why he had lacked the audacity to respond to that clear challenge of fate. He demanded of himself why he had run away from the very thing he had been seeking.