Marion Darche. F. Marion Crawford

passed. The usual number of small boys was skating about on rollers at the corners of the streets, an occasional trio of nurse, perambulator and baby came into view for a moment across the sunlit square ahead of him, and a single express-waggon was halting before a house on the other side of the street, with one of its wheels buried to the hub in a heap of mud-dyed snow. That was all. Few streets in the world can be as quiet as Lexington Avenue at mid-day. It looks almost like Boston. Russell Vanbrugh loved New York in all its aspects and in all its particulars, singly and wholly, in winter and summer, with the undivided affection which natives of great capitals often feel for their own city. He liked to walk in Lexington Avenue, and to think of the roaring, screaming rush in Broadway. He liked to escape from sudden death on the Broadway crossing and to think of the perambulator and the boys on roller skates in Lexington Avenue; and again, he was fond of allowing his thoughts to wander down town to the strange regions which are bounded by the Bowery, Houston Street, the East River and Park Row. It amused him to watch his intensely American surroundings and to remember at the same time that New York is the third German city in the world. He loved contrasts and it was this taste, together with his daily occupation as a criminal lawyer, which had led him to extend his acquaintance beyond the circle in which his father and mother had dined and danced and had their being.

      He was thinking—for people can think while receiving and enjoying momentary impressions which have nothing to do with their thoughts—he was thinking of a particularly complicated murder case in which the murderer had made use of atropine to restore the pupils of his victim's eyes to their natural size lest their dilatation should betray the use of morphia. He was watching the boys, the house, the express-cart, and the distant perambulator, and at the same time he was hesitating as to whether he should light a cigarette or not. He was certainly suffering from the national disease, which is said by medical authorities to consist in thinking of three things at once. He was just wondering whether, if the expressman murdered the nurse and used atropine the boy would find it out, when the door of a house he was passing was opened and a young girl came out upon the brown stone steps and closed it behind her. Her gray eyes met his brown ones and they both started slightly and smiled. The girl's bright colour grew a little more bright, and Vanbrugh's eyelids contracted a little as he stopped and bowed.

      "Oh—is that you?" asked Miss Dolly Maylands, pausing an instant.

      "Good morning," answered Vanbrugh, smiling again as she tripped over the brown steps and met him on the pavement.

      "I suppose your logical mind saw the absurdity of answering my question," said Dolly, holding out a slender gloved hand.

      "I see you have been at your charities again," answered Vanbrugh, watching her fresh face closely.

      "You say that as you would say, 'You have been at your tricks again.' Why do you tease me? But it is quite true. How did you guess it?"

      "Because you began by chaffing me. That shows that you are frivolous to-day. When you have been doing something serious you are always frivolous. When you have been dancing you are always funereal. It is very easy to tell what you have been doing."

      "You ought to be ashamed of yourself."

      Miss Maylands frequently made use of this expression—a strong one in its way.

      "I know I ought," answered Vanbrugh with humility.

      "But you are not. You are a hypocrite, like all the rest of them." Dolly's face was grave, but she glanced at her companion as she spoke.

      "Of course I am a hypocrite. Life is too short. A man cannot waste his time in hacking his way through the ice mountain of truth when he may trot round to the other side by the path of tact."

      "I hate metaphors."

      "So do I."

      "Why do you use them, then?"

      "It is righteous to do the things one does not like to do, is it not?"

      "Not if they are bad."

      "Oh! then I am good, am I?"

      "Perhaps. I never make rash assertions."

      "No? You called me a hypocrite just now, and said I was like the rest of them. Was not that a rash assertion?"

      "Oh dear! You are too logical! I give it up."

      "I am so glad."

      For a few moments they walked along in silence, side by side, in the sunshine. They were a couple pleasant to look at, yet not very remarkable in any way. Dolly Maylands was tall—almost as tall as Vanbrugh, but much fairer. She had about her the singular freshness which clings to some people through life. It is hard to say wherein the quality lies, but it is generally connected with the idea of great natural vitality. There are two kinds of youth. There is the youth of young years, which fades and disappears altogether, and there is the youth of nature which is abiding, or which, at most, shrivels and dies as rose leaves wither, touched with faint colour, still and fragrant to the last. Dolly's freshness was in her large gray eyes, her bright chestnut hair, her smooth, clear skin, her perfect teeth, her graceful figure, her easy motion. But it was deeper than all these, and one looking at her felt that it would outlast them all, and that they would all try hard to outlast one another. For the rest, the broad brow showed thought, if not intellect, and the mouth, rather large for the proportion of the lower face, but not at all heavy, told of strength and courage, if not of real firmness. Dolly Maylands was large, well grown, thin, fresh and thoughtful, with a dash of the devil, but of a perfectly innocent devil, only a little inclined to laugh at his own good works and to prefer play to prayers, as even angels may when they are very young and healthy, and have never done anything to be sorry for.

      "You seem to be walking with me," observed Dolly presently.

      "Well—yes—I suppose that is the impression we are giving the expressman over there."

      "And in court, in one of your cases, if he were a witness, he would probably give the idea that we met in Lexington Avenue by appointment. By the bye, one does not walk in Lexington Avenue in the morning."

      "That is what we are doing," answered Vanbrugh imperturbably.

      "You know that it is compromising, I suppose."

      "So do you."

      "Then why do you do it?"

      "Why do we do it? Is that what you meant to ask?"

      "I did not mean anything."

      "So I supposed, from what you said." Vanbrugh smiled and Dolly laughed as their eyes met.

      "I was here first," said Vanbrugh after a moment.

      "Not at all. I have been at least an hour at old Mrs. Trehearne's."

      "I may have seen you go in, and I may have waited all that time to catch you on the door-step."

      "So like you! Why are you not defending the chemist who cremated his fifth wife alive in a retort, or the cashier who hypnotised the head of his firm and made him sign cheques with his eyes shut, or the typhus-germ murderer, or something nice and interesting of that sort? Are you growing lazy in your old age, Mr. Vanbrugh?"

      "Awfully!"

      "How well you talk. When I have made a beautiful long speech and have beaten my memory black and blue for words I cannot remember, just to be agreeable—you say 'awfully,' and think you are making conversation."

      "I am not good at conversation."

      "Apparently not. However, you will not have much chance of showing off your weakness this morning."

      "Why not?"

      "You might say you are sorry! Why not? Because I am not going far."

      "How far?"

      "That is a rude question. It is like asking me where I am going. But I will be nice and tell you—just to make you feel your inferiority. I am going to see Marion Darche."

      "Mrs. Darche lunches about this time."

      "Exactly.