stairs, somebody touched off a few scales and chords on the instrument,
and then there was peace. Presently he heard her lock her door and go
down the hall humming something; going out to lunch, probably. He stuck
his brushes in a can of turpentine and put on his hat, not stopping to
wash his hands. Caesar was smelling along the crack under the bolted
doors; his bony tail stuck out hard as a hickory withe, and the hair was
standing up about his elegant collar.
Hedger encouraged him. “Come along, Caesar. You’ll soon get used to a new
smell.”
In the hall stood an enormous trunk, behind the ladder that led to the
roof, just opposite Hedger’s door. The dog flew at it with a growl of
hurt amazement. They went down three flights of stairs and out into the
brilliant May afternoon.
Behind the Square, Hedger and his dog descended into a basement oyster
house where there were no tablecloths on the tables and no handles on the
coffee cups, and the floor was covered with sawdust, and Caesar was
always welcome,—not that he needed any such precautionary flooring. All
the carpets of Persia would have been safe for him. Hedger ordered steak
and onions absentmindedly, not realizing why he had an apprehension that
this dish might be less readily at hand hereafter. While he ate, Caesar
sat beside his chair, gravely disturbing the sawdust with his tail.
After lunch Hedger strolled about the Square for the dog’s health and
watched the stages pull out;—that was almost the very last summer of the
old horse stages on Fifth Avenue. The fountain had but lately begun
operations for the season and was throwing up a mist of rainbow water
which now and then blew south and sprayed a bunch of Italian babies that
were being supported on the outer rim by older, very little older,
brothers and sisters. Plump robins were hopping about on the soil; the
grass was newly cut and blindingly green. Looking up the Avenue through
the Arch, one could see the young poplars with their bright, sticky
leaves, and the Brevoort glistening in its spring coat of paint, and
shining horses and carriages,—occasionally an automobile, misshapen and
sullen, like an ugly threat in a stream of things that were bright and
beautiful and alive.
While Caesar and his master were standing by the fountain, a girl
approached them, crossing the Square. Hedger noticed her because she wore
a lavender cloth suit and carried in her arms a big bunch of fresh
lilacs. He saw that she was young and handsome,—beautiful, in fact, with
a splendid figure and good action. She, too, paused by the fountain and
looked back through the Arch up the Avenue. She smiled rather
patronizingly as she looked, and at the same time seemed delighted. Her
slowly curving upper lip and half-closed eyes seemed to say: “You’re gay,
you’re exciting, you are quite the right sort of thing; but you’re none
too fine for me!”
In the moment she tarried, Caesar stealthily approached her and sniffed
at the hem of her lavender skirt, then, when she went south like an
arrow, he ran back to his master and lifted a face full of emotion and
alarm, his lower lip twitching under his sharp white teeth and his hazel
eyes pointed with a very definite discovery. He stood thus, motionless,
