There exist in the heart of a London dawn a few minutes when the street lamps have just been extinguished, but before the sun has risen, when the city cannot fail to be beautiful even in its meanest aspects. At such an hour the Bayswater Road has the mystery of a dew-steeped glade; the Strand wears the frail hues of a sea-shell; Regent Street is crystalline. Even Piccadilly Circus stands on the very summit of the world, wind-washed and noble. To Maurice and Jenny London was always a city seen at dawn; so many dull streets had been enchanted by their meetings, so many corners had been invested with the delight of the loved one's new appearance. But, though they were still imparadised, a certain wistfulness in looks and handclasps showed that they both instinctively felt they would never again tread the pavement so lightly, never again make time a lyric, life a measure. On the afternoon before Jenny's birthday, she and Maurice had gone to Hampstead, there to discuss the details of a wonderful party that was to celebrate in the studio the lucky occasion. They had wandered arm in arm through the green alleys and orderly byways of the mellow suburb, dreaming away all sense of time and space. It was the very culmination of St. Luke's summer, and nowhere had the glories been more richly displayed. Robins sang in Well Walk, and Michaelmas daisies splashed every garden with constellations of vivid mauve. After tea they walked up Heath Street and on a wooden seat stayed to watch the sunset. Below them the Heath rolled away in grassland to houses whose smoke was heavy on the dull crimson of a stormy dusk. The sun sank with an absence of effect which chilled them both. Night, with a cold wind that heralded rain, came hard on the heels of twilight. The mist rose thickly from the lower parts of the Heath, and the night's jewelry was blurred. Maurice spoke suddenly as if to a signal. "Jenny, we seem to have spent a very long time together now in finding out nothing." "What _do_ you mean?" she asked. "I mean--we've been together a frightful lot, but I don't know anything about you and you don't know anything about me." "I know you're a darling." "Yes, I know that, but----" "What!" she broke in, "well, if you don't properly go out with yourself." "No, I mean--bother about me being a darling--what I mean is--what are we going to do?" "What do you want us to do?" "You don't help me out," he complained. "Look here, are you really in love with me?" "Of course I am," she said softly. "Yes, but really violently, madly in love to the exclusion of everything else in the world?" "Kiss me," said Jenny, answering him from her heart. "Kissing's too easy," said Maurice. "Kissing proves nothing. You've probably kissed dozens of men." "Well, why not?" "Why not? Good Heavens, if I give up my whole being to you, do you mean to say you're not going to think anything of kissing dozens of men?" "Don't be silly. To begin with, they did all the kissing."