A wave of cheap perfume assailed his nostrils.

The untidy pretentiousness of her ill-chosen clothes, the unreality of her manner and carriage, the sheer vulgarity of her choice of words and phrases--these things seized him as a nightmare.

Like a man who rushes to a cafe for a drink in a moment of exhaustion, he hastened along towards the National Gallery.

His nerves were all quivering.

An opalescent light in the sky above Charing Cross soothed him for a moment.