Kitty laughed. "This is going to be fun!"

"Rather!"

They groped their way through the dim loft--for it was growing dark

outside--and made the stairhead. The door to the seventeenth floor

opened, and they stepped forth into the lighted hallway.

"Now what?" asked Kitty, bubbling.

"The floor below, and one of the other lifts, what?" Twenty minutes

later the two of them, arm in arm, turned into Broadway.

"This, sir," began Kitty with a gesture, "is Broadway--America's

backyard in the daytime and Ali Baba's cave at night. The way of the

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gilded youth; the funnel for papa's money; the chorus lady; the starting

point of the high cost of living. We New Yorkers despise it because we

can't afford it."

"The lights!" gasped Hawksley.

"Wreckers' lights. Behold! Yonder is a highly nutritious whisky blinking

its bloomin' farewell. Do you chew gum? Even if you don't, in a few

minutes I'll give you a cud for thought. Chewing gum was invented by a

man with a talkative wife. He missed the physiological point, however,

that a body can chew and talk at the same time. Come on!"

They went on uptown, Hawksley highly amused, exhilarated, but frequently

puzzled. The pungent irony of her observations conveyed to him that

under this gayety was a current of extreme bitterness. "I say, are all

American girls like you?"

"Heavens, no! Why?"

"Because I never met one like you before. Rather stilted--on their good

behaviour, I fancy."

"And I interest you because I'm not on my good behaviour?" Kitty whipped

back.

"Because you are as God made you--without camouflage."

"The poor innocent young man! I'm nothing but camouflage to-night. Why

are you risking your life in the street? Why am I sharing that risk?

Because we both feel bound and are blindly trying to break through. What

do you know about me? Nothing. What do I know about you? Nothing. But

what do we care? Come on, come on!"

Tumpitum--tump! tumpitum--tump! drummed the Elevated. Kitty laughed. The

tocsin! Always something happened when she heard it.

"Pearls!" she cried, dragging him toward a jeweller's window.

"No!" he said, holding back. "I hate--jewels! How I hate them!" He broke

away from her and hurried on.

She had to run after him. Had she hesitated they might have become

separated. Hated jewels? No, no! There should be no questions, verbal or

mental, this night. She presently forced him to slow down. "Not so fast!

We must never become separated," she warned. "Our safety--such as it

is--lies in being together."




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