At the same moment the horses slackened speed and then stopped, arrested by one of the temporary blocks that so often occur in the traffic of Piccadilly Circus. Loder, preoccupied with his own feelings, scarcely noticed the halt, but Eve drew away from him laughing. “You mustn't!” she said, softly. “Look!” The carriage had stopped beside one of the small islands that intersect the place; a group of pedestrians were crowded upon it, under the light of the electric lamp--wayfarers who, like themselves, were awaiting a passage. Loder took a cursory glance at them, then turned back to Eve. “What are they, after all, but men and women?” he said. “They'd understand--every one of them.” He laughed in his turn; nevertheless he withdrew his arm. Her feminine thought for conventionalities appealed to him. It was an acknowledgment of dependency. For a while they sat silent, the light of the street lamp flickering through the glass of the window, the hum of voices and traffic coming to them in a continuous rise and fall of sound. At first the position was interesting; but, as the seconds followed each other, it gradually became irksome. Loder, watching the varying expressions of Eve's face, grew impatient of the delay, grew suddenly eager to be alone again in the fragrant darkness. Impelled by the desire, he leaned forward and opened the window. “Let's find the meaning of this,” he said. “Is there nobody to regulate the traffic?” As he spoke he half rose and leaned out of the window. There was a touch of imperious annoyance in his manner. Fresh from the realization of power, there was something irksome in this commonplace check to his desires. “Isn't it possible to get out of this?” Eve heard him call to the coachman. Then she heard no more. He had leaned out of the carriage with the intention of looking onward towards the cause of the delay; instead, by that magnetic attraction that undoubtedly exists, he looked directly in front of him at the group of people waiting on the little island--at one man who leaned against the lamp-post in an attitude of apathy--a man with a pallid, unshaven face and lustreless eyes, who wore a cap drawn low over his forehead. He looked at this man, and the man saw and returned his glance. For a space that seemed interminable they held each other's eyes; then very slowly Loder drew back into the carriage. As he dropped into his seat, Eve glanced at him anxiously. “John,” she said, “has anything happened? You look ill.” He turned to her and tried to smile. “It's nothing,” he said. “Nothing to worry about.” He spoke quickly, but his voice had suddenly become flat. All the command, all the domination had dropped away from it. Eve bent close to him, her face lighting up with anxious tenderness. “It was the excitement,” she said, “the strain of tonight.” He looked at her; but he made no attempt to press the fingers that clasped his own.