He was in the taxi in a flash. ‘I was so hoping you’d say that,’ he said, pulling the door to with such vigour that a shower of raindrops jerked off the top of the window-frame on to her dress. These he had to wipe off, which he did with immense care, and a handkerchief that deplorably was not one of his new ones. She sat passive while he did it, going over the evening’s performance, pointing out, describing, reminding, and he, as he dried, told himself definitely that he had had enough of <i>The Immortal Hour</i>. She must stop, she must stop. He must talk to her, must find out more about her. He was burning to know more about her before the infernally fast taxi arrived at her home. And she would do nothing, as they bumped furiously along, but quote and ecstasise. That was a good word, he thought, as it came into his head; and he was so much pleased with it that he said it out loud. ‘I wish you wouldn’t <i>ecstasise</i>,’ he said. ‘Not now. Not for the next few minutes.’ ‘Ecstasise?’ she repeated, wondering. ‘Aren’t your shoes wet? Crossing that soaking pavement? I’m sure they must be wet----’ And he reached down and began to wipe their soles too with his handkerchief. She watched him a little surprised, but still passive. This was what it was to be young. One squandered a beautiful clean handkerchief on a woman’s dirty shoes without thinking twice. She observed the thickness of his hair as he bent over her shoes. She had forgotten how thick the hair of the young could be, having now for so long only contemplated heads that were elderly. To him in the half darkness of the taxi she looked really exactly like the dream, the warm, round, cosy, delicious dream lonely devils like himself were always dreaming, forlornly hugging their pillows. And as for her feet--he abruptly left off drying them. The next thing he felt he would be doing would be kneeling down and kissing them, and he was afraid she mightn’t like that, and be angry with him, and never let him see her again. ‘You’ve spoilt your handkerchief,’ she remarked, as he put it, all muddy, into his pocket. ‘I don’t look at it like that,’ he said, staring straight out of the front windows, and sitting up very stiff and away in his corner because he didn’t trust himself, and was mortally afraid of not behaving. It was now quite evident to Christopher that he was in love, deeply in love. He felt very happy about it, because for the first time he was, as he put it, in love properly. All the other times had been so odious, leaving him making such wry faces. And he had longed and longed to be in love--properly, with somebody intelligent and educated as well as adorable. These three: but the greatest of these was the being adorable.