"Jim Neeland!" she exclaimed impulsively. "--I mean Mr. Neeland----"
a riot of colour flooding her face. But her eager hand remained
outstretched. He took it, pressed it lightly, ceremoniously, and,
still standing, continued to smile down at her.
Amid all this strange, infernal glitter; amid a city of six million
strangers, suddenly to encounter a familiar face--to see
somebody--anybody--from Gayfield--seemed a miracle too delightful to
be true.
"You are Rue Carew," he said. "I was not certain for a moment. You
know we met only once before."
Rue, conscious of the startled intimacy of her first greeting, blushed
with the memory. But Neeland was a tactful young man; he said easily,
with his very engaging smile: "It was nice of you to remember me so frankly and warmly. You have no
idea how pleasant it was to hear a Gayfield voice greet me as 'Jim.'"
"I--didn't intend to----"
"Please intend it in future, Rue. You don't mind, do you?"
"No."
"And will you ever forget that magnificent winter night when we drove
to Brookhollow after the party?"
"I have--remembered it."
"So have I.... Are you waiting for somebody? Of course you are," he
added, laughing. "But may I sit down for a moment?"
"Yes, I wish you would."
So he seated himself, lighted a cigarette, glanced up at her and
smiled.
"When did you come to New York?" he asked.
"Tonight."
"Well, isn't that a bit of luck to run into you like this! Have you
come here to study art?"
"No.... Yes, I think, later, I am to study art here."
"At the League?"
"I don't know."
"Better go to the League," he said. "Begin there anyway. Do you know
where it is?"
"No," she said.
He called a waiter, borrowed pencil and pad, and wrote down the
address of the Art Students' League. He had begun to fold the paper
when a second thought seemed to strike him, and he added his own
address.
"In case I can do anything for you in any way," he explained.
Rue thanked him, opened her reticule, and placed the folded paper
there beside her purse.
"I do hope I shall see you soon again," he said, looking gaily, almost
mischievously into her grey eyes. "This certainly resembles fate.
Don't you think so, Rue--this reunion of ours?"
"Fate?" she repeated.
"Yes. I should even call it romantic. Don't you think our meeting this
way resembles something very much like romance?"
She felt herself flushing, tried to smile: "It couldn't resemble anything," she explained with quaint honesty,
"because I am sailing for Europe tomorrow morning; I am going on board
in less than an hour. And also--also, I----"
"Also?"--he prompted her, amused, yet oddly touched by her childishly
literal reply.