They walked along the Embankment from Westminster Bridge towards the City. A serene sky hung over London, transposed to an astonishing blue by the complementary yellow of the brilliant street lights. A few trams and taxis were still moving on the Embankment, but after the ceaseless roar of day traffic, the air seemed almost silent. At times, they could hear the lap and gurgle of the swift river water, as the strong flood tide ran inland, bearing a faint flavour of salt. The river was beautifully silver in the soft steady moonlight which wavered into multitudes of ripples as soon as it touched the broken surface of the Thames. Blocks of moored barges stood black and immovable in the silver flood. The Southern bank was dark, low and motionless, except for the luminous announcements of the blessings of Lipton’s Tea and the Daily Mail. The Scotchman in coloured moving lights pledged the bonny highlands in countless sparkling glasses of electric whiskey. Hungerford Railway Bridge seemed filled with the red eyes of immense dragons, whose vast bulk lay coiled somewhere invisibly on either bank. Occasionally a red eye would wink green, and presently a brightly-lit train would crawl cautiously and heavily over the vibrating bridge. The lighted windows of the Cecil and the Savoy aroused no envy in them. Nor did they pine to inspect the records of a great people lying behind the darkened and silent façade of Somerset House. Opposite the quiet Temple Garden they paused by the parapet and looked up and down that magnificent sweep of river, with its amazing mixture of dignified beauty and almost incredible sordidness. They stood for some time, talking in quiet tones, comparing the Thames with the Seine, and wondering what dream-like city would have arisen by those noble curves if London had been inhabited by a race of artists. Elizabeth wanted to set Florence or Oxford on either side of the Thames between Westminster and St. Paul’s. George agreed that that would be lovely, but thought the buildings would be dwarfed by the width of the river, the long bridges and the length of façade. And they finally agreed that with all its sordidness and hugger-mugger and strange contrast of palaces abutting on slums, the Embankment had a beauty of its own which they would not exchange even for the dream-city of a race of artists. Midnight boomed with majestic, policeman-like slowness from Big Ben; and as the last deep vibrations faded from the air, the great city seemed to be gliding into sleep and silence. They lingered a little longer, and then turned to go.