Chapter 22
Siegmund went up to Victoria. He was in no hurry to get down to
Wimbledon. London was warm and exhausted after the hot day, but this
peculiar lukewarmness was not unpleasant to him. He chose to walk from
Victoria to Waterloo.
The streets were like polished g*n-metal glistened over with gold. The taxi-cabs, the wild cats of the town, swept over the gleaming floor swiftly, soon lessening in the distance, as if scornful of the other clumsy-footed traffic. He heard the merry click-clock of the swinging hansoms, then the excited whirring of the motor-buses as they charged full-tilt heavily down the road, their hearts, as it seemed, beating with trepidation; they drew up with a sigh of relief by the kerb, and stood there panting—great, nervous, clumsy things. Siegmund was alwa
