After driving through long streets, brilliant with shops of endless marvel, the coachman pulled up for the last time.

It was a dull drizzly evening, with sudden windy gusts, and, in itself, dark as pitch.

But Alec descended, cold and wet, in a brilliant light which flowed from the door of the hotel as if it had been the very essence of its structure.

A porter took charge of his box, hoisted it on his back, and led the way to the address he gave him.
Notwithstanding the drizzle, and the angry rushes of the wind round the street-corners, the foot-pavements were filled with men and women, moving in different directions, like a double row of busy ants.

Through queer short cuts that terribly bewildered the way, the porter led him to the house, and pushing the door open, went up two flights of stone stairs and knocked at a door on the landing.