Siegmund went up to Victoria. He was in no hurry to get down to
Wimbledon. London was warm and exhausted after the hot day, but this
peculiar lukewarmness was not unpleasant to him. He chose to walk from
Victoria to Waterloo.

The streets were like polished gun-metal glistened over with gold. The
taxi-cabs, the wild cats of the town, swept over the gleaming floor
swiftly, soon lessening in the distance, as if scornful of the other
clumsy-footed traffic. He heard the merry click-clock of the swinging
hansoms, then the excited whirring of the motor-buses as they charged
full-tilt heavily down the road, their hearts, as it seemed, beating
with trepidation; they drew up with a sigh of relief by the kerb, and
stood there panting--great, nervous, clumsy things. Siegmund was always
amused by the headlong, floundering career of the buses. He was pleased
with this scampering of the traffic; anything for distraction. He was
glad Helena was not with him, for the streets would have irritated her
with their coarse noise. She would stand for a long time to watch the
rabbits pop and hobble along on the common at night; but the tearing
along of the taxis and the charge of a great motor-bus was painful to
her. 'Discords,' she said, 'after the trees and sea.' She liked the
glistening of the streets; it seemed a fine alloy of gold laid down for
pavement, such pavement as drew near to the pure gold streets of Heaven;
but this noise could not be endured near any wonderland.