When the door had closed behind them and they had begun to walk along the paved river path, the impression and its accompanying decision vanished.
Sally was a romantic--that cannot be denied.

She could talk reverently about love in the abstract.

In her mind, it was not a condition into which one fell, as the unwary traveller falls into the ditch by the roadside, picking himself out as quickly as may be, or, in his weariness, choosing at least to sleep the night there and go on with his journey next morning.

In the heart of Sally, whether it were a pitfall or not, love was an end in itself.

She directed all her steps towards that destination, and any light of romance allured her.
That evening, walking up towards Kew Bridge, the lights of the barges lying in the stream, looking themselves like huddled reptiles seeking the warmth of each other's bodies, the lights of the little buildings on the eyot, and the lamps of the bridge itself, all dancing quaint measures in the black water, brought to the susceptibility of Sally's mind a sense of romance.