What Will People Say?
nearly every corner a policeman succeeded where King Canute had fai
is last few years keeping savage tribes in outward peace. When he was away or asleep the Moros rioted at will. And so the traf
ivering back into position. But once the vista ahead was free of uniforms all the clutches leaped
time a higher speed than thirty miles an hour; and never a man that o
spirit of truancy and adventure. All this grown-up, sophisticated world seemed to be run like a school, with joyous deviltry whenever and wherever the teac
cess of slicing off the sidewalks and repairing their losses at the expense of the houses. The residences on both sides of the once so stately corridor looked to him as if a giant ha
once come down from the vestibule to the street with the sweeping gesture of a hand of welcome. No
ed the choke of traffic. Or else the traffic had swollen more fiercel
shed him even less than their luxury. The designers had ceased to mimic hansoms, broughams, and victorias following invisible
s were lustrous and many-colored, sleekly tremendous. They had not yet entirely outgrown the imitation of the wooden frame, and their sides looked frail
the weaklings they looked. They, too, like their cars, only affected fatigue and ineptitude, for they also were built
the many things
hauffeurs, the policemen, and a few men whose trades evidently fetched them to this lane of pleasure-the throng
ry: "There is one I could love! I never shall forget her beauty!" And be
g else there, so beauty canceled itself here by its very multitude. For the next mile only the flamboyantly gorgeous or the fl
was like. In the slow and fitful progress up the Avenue it chanced that his stage kept close in
g, though his documents were scant. Her head was completely hidden from his v
make triumphs of. It bore no ornament at all except a filmy white bird-of-paradise feather stuck
ensive. It had a sort of success of impudence, alone there, and it
hat flower-face was hidden under that
urious felicity of her left arm. Seen thus detached, they fascinated him and kindled his curiosity. By and by he was swept near enough to glimps
earned at least the color of her hair, and probably she would have lifted her startled face to view like a reverted rose. He was a fearless soldier, but he
l, and it had the metallic glitter of the New York voice. He
said. "I was bored stiff. Yo
em like a green hippopotamus. Forbes began to feel a gnawing anxiety to see what was under that paradise feather. He assumed that beauty was th
his passenger. Great expectations seemed to be justified by the fact that nearly every policeman s
on the sidewalk seemed to be important people, and yet to be pr
while a contemptuous teamster, perched atop a huge steel girder, drove six haughty stallions across
s. This officer paused to pass the time of day with the mysterious woman, and the horse put his n
ar, I wish I had
that she spoke, but
you, ma'am, is
e lady laughed again. She was evidently not afraid of a c
ur pairdo
dy, and his interest redoubled just as the young woman leaned forward to speak to her chauffeur. She had plainly seen that the
made a mental note of the number
the records for his own purposes. He must know who she was and how she looked. Meanwhile he