“Well, why not just walk to the park and sit down?” she persisted.
De Medici shook his head.
“Damn it all!” he exclaimed. “I’m going to make love and I don’t want a lot of fat policemen walking up and down in front of me or a parade of squirrel-feeding old maids staring rebukefully. I’ve set my mind on a cab. It’s distinctly modern.”
“But a fearful waste of money,” the girl smiled.
“Ah,” De Medici murmured, “then you do love me.”
“Of course,” she answered.
They stood silently in the press of the crowds moving down Fifth Avenue, their fingers touching. De Medici’s eyes grew misty. He felt curiously at peace, as if he had escaped forever the dark things inside him.
“We’ll take a cab, anyway,” he said finally. Then, as the girl raised her luminous face to him, he grew buoyant. He looked about him with a feeling of surprise. He had awakened from a bad dream. Prince Julien the cynical and tormented survivor of an evil race had vanished. Here was an ecstatic and humorous youth making love to a marvelous creature under the towers of a new civilization.
“I’ve a lot of speeches I’ve always wanted to include as a part of my first and last proposal. We’ll get into a cab and I’ll propose.”
He hailed a taxi and they entered.