Geraldine Bonner

“ The millionaire, rising and jerking himself into erectness for the moment of farewell, was imposing enough for the disparity in years between him and his wife to be overlooked. Holding out a jewelled hand, she smiled softly up at the departing guest, and then let her glance slip obliquely away from the open admiration in his eyes, which made her laugh a little with secret amusement and triumph. ”

“ Something may turn up, you know. Good-bye!” The door opened, shut, and he was gone.
It was even darker and chillier than it had been, the Colonel thought, turning up his collar. He would keep to the broader thoroughfares for the rest of the way home. By the light of the first street lamp he looked at the top of the malacca and observed that it had not sustained a scratch, while Danny had been nearly killed. The Colonel breathed a pious sentiment of thanksgiving at the thought of his assailant's escape, and struck sharp sounds out of the cement pavement with the tip of the sturdy cane. ”

“ He passed from one of these to another, crossing the light-dotted lengths of wider thoroughfares, to plunge again into the narrow blackness of the next alley. As he advanced they seemed to grow meaner and darker. The houses on either side, the wretched tenements of the poor, rarely showed a crack or crevice of light through their sagging shutters, against which the Colonel's shoulder—so narrow were the sidewalks—brushed as he passed. ”

“ He felt the grave importance of one who has suddenly increased his fund of experience, his power of comprehension, and walked forward with a firmer step, his head held high. Traversing a dark block and turning a corner, he came suddenly upon the light-pierced, rustling darkness of the plaza. Its tropical trees and plants raised their massy spiked and notched foliage against the great façade of the club, crudely staring at the night with long, lit windows. ”

“ Was that exquisite piece of flesh and millinery the woman a man would choose to love and cherish? Would she meet his looks with eyes of quiet truth and faith, and have a soft hand ready to slip into his when the grey days came? ”

“ Life 's too short to do anything but enjoy it. Danny's all right. Get him something to eat, and to-morrow take him to a drug store and they'll fix up his head. My hat looks worse than Danny does,” he added, solicitously punching out the dints in it and brushing it with his sleeve.
He took up his cane and moved to the door, The two on the floor had moved a little nearer to each other, and looked dumbly at him. Opening the door a crack, he paused, his head bent, listening for the policeman's returning tread, but the silence of midnight possessed the alley. ”

“ The Colonel, taking a swift coup d' œil up its shadowy length, shifted his grip from the top to the end of his cane. Some distance ahead of him, looking far away through the fog, a solitary lamp shone, a yellow spot dropped on the darkness. It looked like a street of the dead, a street of evil doings seen once in a dream, with all these squalid houses looming large and toppling through the sinister, shrouding mist. The Colonel, running an exploring glance over the bedimmed wooden walls and humid shutters, wondered what Mrs. ”

“ They get money and things and get off. I didn't see no reason why he couldn't. It ain't no picnic starving. I made him to do it. He didn't want to. He kep' on saying he did n't have no strength, but he would n't get no more settin' here starving. I was looking through the shutters. I seen yer comin', and I says 'Here's your man, Danny. Let out now and baste him; the cop's away; the street's clear.' An' he didn't want to. So I says, 'You do it now or I'll go out and beg off him.' That settled it, and he went.”
She stopped abruptly, her hard eyes on the Colonel. ”

“ The memory of her sitting in delicate erectness in the silken splendor of her heliotrope dress floated before his vision, blotting out the faces of all other women, plain or pretty.
As the waiter assisted him on with his coat, and the girl with the green rosettes stole one last glance at him, he was still preoccupied. He stretched his hand for his cane, and thought that, after all, he was glad he had not married Mrs. Mack. Something was wanting ”