"She's either the most subtle thing that God ever made, or else——" Herrick did not know what else. But he would find out.
When they had left the more crowded streets behind, Herrick stopped and looked at his watch.
"It's only six, and it's not much good getting to Giuseppe's before seven. What shall we do? Go round to Chinatown and have tea, or would you like to go up to Flop's studio? He's the father of The Bunch, you know, and maybe you'd feel as if you knew him better if you saw some of his stuff first."
He stood looking down at her with a smile that consulted only her preference, and showed none of his own eagerness that she should choose the latter. When Franklin Herrick was trying to break through the reserves of a woman, he looked like Sir Galahad going to battle. It always filled the woman with a rush of tenderness, and a longing to stand for something fine and real in his life.
"Besides, I'd like to show you some of Flop's stuff for its own sake, and we won't get a chance after dinner, when the whole Bunch is there. We are a noisy lot, Miss Norris. You must be prepared for anything."
"Oh, I can make a lot of noise myself. And I'd like awfully to see the pictures."
"This way, then. We'll go down through The Coast, if you don't mind. It's quicker."
His tone apologized for the street into which he turned, in a way that made Jean want to laugh at the idea of her needing protection, and at the same time delighted her. She had never been in this part of the city before, and she looked about her with interest.
Skirting the edge of Chinatown, beyond the boundaries of the big bazaars, they touched the poorer fringe of the Latin quarter, where dirty black-eyed babies tumbled in dark doorways, and tired women with bundles of food under their shawls hurried by, dragging hungry, screaming children by the hand. Here the narrow streets struggled up steep hillsides, as if in a forlorn hope of reaching quiet above. Everywhere was dust and noise and the harsh voices of men screaming at each other in the rough Sicilian dialect.
Then down through the sordid section that lies between the White World and the Yellow, where mean, gray houses cling hopelessly together, like the poor for comfort and outcasts for respectability. Where the tides of Barbary Coast wash the world beyond, Herrick paused. Then he plunged in.