Christine knew Piccadilly, Leicester Square, Regent Street, a bit of Oxford¹ Street, the Green Park, Hyde Park, Victoria Station, Charing² Cross. Beyond these, London, measureless as the future and the past, surrounded her with the unknown. But she had not been afraid, because of her conviction that men were much the same everywhere, and that she had power over them. She did not exercise this power consciously; she had merely to exist and it exercised itself. For her this power was the mystical central fact of the universe. Now, however, as she stood in the Promenade³, it seemed to her that something uncanny had happened to the universe. Surely it had shifted from its pivot⁵! Her basic conviction trembled. Men were not the same everywhere, and her power over them was a delusion⁶. Englishmen were incomprehensible; they were not human; they were apart. The memory of the hundreds of Englishmen who had yielded to her power in Paris (for she had specialised in travelling Englishmen) could not re-establish her conviction as to the sameness of men. The presence of her professed⁷ rivals of various nationalities in  the Promenade could not restore it either. The Promenade in its cold, prim⁸ languor⁹ was the very negation¹⁰ of desire. She was afraid. She foresaw ruin for herself in this London, inclement¹¹, misty¹² and inscrutable.