In the Middle Ages, for example, this girl would have been a
Damsel; and in that happy time practically everybody whose
technical rating was that of Damsel was in distress and only too
willing to waive the formalities in return for services rendered by
the casual passer-by. But the twentieth century is a prosaic age,
when girls are merely girls and have no troubles at all. Were he
to stop this girl in brown and assure her that his aid and comfort
were at her disposal, she would undoubtedly call that large
policeman from across the way, and the romance would begin and end
within the space of thirty seconds, or, if the policeman were a
quick mover, rather less.
Better to dismiss dreams and return to the practical side of life
by buying the evening papers from the shabby individual beside him,
who had just thrust an early edition in his face. After all notices
are notices, even when the heart is aching. George felt in his
pocket for the necessary money, found emptiness, and remembered
that he had left all his ready funds at his hotel. It was just one
of the things he might have expected on a day like this.
The man with the papers had the air of one whose business is
conducted on purely cash principles. There was only one thing to be
done, return to the hotel, retrieve his money, and try to forget
the weight of the world and its cares in lunch. And from the hotel
he could despatch the two or three cables which he wanted to send
to New York.
The girl in brown was quite close now, and George was enabled to
get a clearer glimpse of her. She more than fulfilled the promise
she had given at a distance. Had she been constructed to his own
specifications, she would not have been more acceptable in George's
sight. And now she was going out of his life for ever. With an
overwhelming sense of pathos, for there is no pathos more bitter
than that of parting from someone we have never met, George hailed
a taxicab which crawled at the side of the road; and, with all the
refrains of all the sentimental song hits he had ever composed
ringing in his ears, he got in and passed away.
"A rotten world," he mused, as the cab, after proceeding a couple
of yards, came to a standstill in a block of the traffic. "A dull,
flat bore of a world, in which nothing happens or ever will happen.
Even when you take a cab it just sticks and doesn't move."