There she stopped and glanced back.

He was gone.

In all the hundreds of human beings who mingled and churned like a swarm of ants upon an ant-hill, he was nowhere to be seen.

With a genuine sigh of relief, she crossed over to the Piccadilly side and walked beside a Hammersmith 'bus, as if slowed gradually down to the regulated place where the conditions of traffic permit vehicles to collect their passengers.
A little crowd of people, like flies upon fallen fruit, clung about the steps of the 'bus as it moved towards its resting-place.

She joined in with them, jostled along the pavement by their efforts to secure an advantageous position by the steps.