Harry Grant had caught sight of the old lady in time. He stepped away from the carriage, and, passing behind it, crossed to the other side of the street without giving Winifred's grandmother a chance to recognize him.
He waited on the opposite corner until Mrs. Winston-Smith took her place in the coupé beside her granddaughter, and until the carriage was turned and had started towards Fifth Avenue.
Then he crossed the broad space nearly to the edge of the park and jumped on the first car that came rushing around the curve. The platform was crowded, but he took no heed of the men who were pressed against him.
His thoughts were elsewhere and his heart was full of hope; it was attuned to the gladness of the spring-time. He did not see the young men and maidens who flocked thickly up Broadway; he saw Winifred only; he saw her face, her eyes, her smile of welcome. He was to see her again, at once almost, and he could tell her then how he loved her, and he could ask her if she would not try to love him. What if the only chance he should have was in the street itself? Only the proposal itself was of importance, the place mattered nothing. Perhaps the unconventionality of the proceeding even added zest to it. There was unconventionality in the frankness with which she had made the appointment. It was this frankness partly which made his heart leap with hope, and partly it was the welcome he thought he had read in her eyes when their glances met first.
The car sped on its way, stopping at almost every corner to take on and to let off men and women, who brushed against Harry Grant and whom he did not see, so absorbed was he in going over every word of his brief dialogue with the girl he loved. On the sidewalks were thick throngs of brightly dressed women looking into the windows of the shops, where were displayed brilliant parasols and trim yachting costumes and summer stuffs in lightsome colors.
As the car crossed Fifth Avenue he saw the carriage of Mrs. Winston-Smith only a block away. He recognized the coachman upright on the box, and then all at once he wondered what the coachman must have thought of his talk through the open window, and of his abrupt appearance. He smiled—indeed he laughed gently—for what did he care what the coachman might think, or anybody else? It was what she thought which was of importance, and nothing else mattered at all. And again he was seized with impatience to see her once and to tell her that he loved her, and to get her answer. The car was going swiftly, but it seemed to him to crawl. The coachman on the avenue was driving briskly, but Harry Grant was ready to rebuke the man for his sluggishness.
At last the car passed the door of the florist's Winifred had described. Its window was filled with azaleas massed with an artistic instinct almost Japanese. Harry Grant rode to the corner above and walked back very slowly, loitering before a shop window, but wholly unconscious of the spring neck-wear therein displayed. Two minutes later he saw Mrs. Winston-Smith's carriage coming down Twenty-ninth Street. It turned into Broadway and stopped before the florist's wide window. Mrs. Winston-Smith got out and ordered the coachman to wait at the corner.
She had disappeared inside the florist's before the coupé drew up in the side street.
As the coachman reined in his horses Harry Grant stepped up to the open window.
"Winifred—" he began.