But her aspirations, in so far as they concerned Europe, her father was unable to gratify. He could not let her go alone and he could not afford to throw up what he called his beesness. Here, then, was this girl, pretty as a picture, with a lovely contralto voice, with aspirations entirely worldly, with wings, you might say, cooped in Gay Street, spiritually and mentally starved there.
Gay Street lies back of Jefferson Market. In shape a crescent, it curves briefly in a lost and dismal way through a region which, though but a block or two from Fifth Avenue, is almost squalid. At one end of its short curve is a saloon, at the other an apothecary.
It was from this apothecary that Loftus learned Marie’s name—or thought he did. For inadvertently the man got things mixed as his drugs and supplied Loftus with the name of a young woman who lived in a house next to the one in which Loftus had seen the girl enter.
What is more interesting is the fact that, though, while he was following her there, she had looked neither to the right nor to the left, or anywhere save straight ahead, she had been fully aware that he was behind her. How? We cannot tell. It is one of the mysteries of femininity. But once safely in, boldly she peeked out. Loftus was crossing the street. Presently he entered the shop. For what, it did not take Marie more than a minute to conjecture.
Later in the day a motor van appeared in that street. On it was the name of a Broadway florist. Since the memory of man never before had such a thing happened. From the van a groom had hopped and, if you please, with roses. That, too, was phenomenal. Yet thereafter every day for a week there was the motor, the groom and flowers at a dollar and a half apiece. The recipient of these attentions was Miss Rebecca Cohen, the daughter of Mr. Abraham Cohen, who also, like Marie’s father, was a tailor.
Marie saw the van, divined the mistake, and, being as full of fun as a kitten, greatly enjoyed the continued humor of it. For still into that sordid street the flowers poured. Every day, to the unhallowed surprise of Mr. Cohen and to the equal bewilderment of his offspring, a box of radiant roses was handed out.
In that surprise and bewilderment the neighborhood joined. Scandalized at the scandal Cohen questioned the groom, questioned the chauffeur. He might have saved himself the trouble. Then he inquired at the florist’s. But there no one could be found who knew anything at all about anything whatever. Already he had questioned Rebecca. It seemed to him that in spite of her protests she must be engaged in some fathomless intrigue. But Rebecca, whose commercial instinct was beautifully developed, not only protested but appeased. She told her father that the roses were worth money. Furthermore, that which is worth money can be sold. Thereupon sold they were. But quite as inexplicably as the van had appeared so did its visits cease. When that happened Mr. Cohen felt and declared that he was robbed. He had come to regard the roses as assets.
Marie meanwhile, whom the humor of the situation had amused, ended by worrying over it. She was a good girl, as such conscientious, and it troubled her, at first only a little and then very much, to think that Loftus must believe that she was knowingly accepting his flowers. Moreover, her father had commented upon them; in commenting he had wondered. Marie began to fear that Loftus might discover the mistake and turn in and inundate her. She did not know quite what to do. She thought of writing to him, very distantly, in the third person, or else anonymously. But the letter did not seem to get itself framed. Then, from thinking of that, she fell to thinking of him.
To see him she had only to close her eyes. Once he visited her in dream. He came accompanied by butterflies that fluttered about her and changed into kisses on her lips. Again she fancied him much sought after by ladies and became hotly and unaccountably vexed at the idea. It would be so lovely to really know him, she always decided. But she did not see at all how that ever could come about.
Yet, of course, it did come about. It came about, moreover, in a fashion as sordid as the street she lived in.
That street, though sordid, is relatively silent. It is beyond, in Sixth Avenue, that you get a sample of real New York noise. The slam-bang of the trains overhead, the grinding grunt of the surface cars, the demon draymen, the clanging motors, the ceaseless crowds, collaborate in an uproar beside which a bombardment is restful. But though the entire thoroughfare is appalling, Jefferson Market, behind which Gay Street squats, is infernal.
Loftus loathed it. Until he pursued the girl into its horrors never before had he been there. Nor, save for her, would he have returned. But return he did. For recompense he beheld her. She was strolling along, a roll of music under her arm, in the direction of Fifth Avenue.
It was there he attempted to accost her. Without deigning to seem even aware that he had presumed to do so, she passed on and, in passing, turned into Washington Square, where, ascending the steps of a house, she vanished. It was then three by the clock of a beautiful day in April.
Loftus was as well able as another to put two and two together. He knew that young girls do not stroll about with a music roll under their arm
