There were bank clerks and schoolteachers and translators though no more poetesses; and everybody was kind to the new boarder, the Englishwoman, especially in telling her all about New York.
"What do you think of Broadway?" asked her neighbour a handsome young German Jew, who was more insistently American than any of those native born.
Win was shamefacedly not sure whether she had seen it.
"Not sure whether you have seen Broadway!" exclaimed Mr. Löwenfeld. "Wait till you've been on the Great White Way after dark. Then I guess you won't make any mistake."
"Is it so wonderful?" she asked.
"I should smile! There's nothing like it on earth. Would you like to walk out and see it to-night? Miss Secker and I'll take you, if you would, won't we, Miss Secker?"
"Only too pleased," rather shrilly replied a fair-haired girl on his other side—a pretty girl in eyeglasses who, Miss Hampshire had announced, was "translating secretary"
for a firm of toy importers. Somehow the tone suggested to Win an incipient engagement of marriage and jealousy of new importations.
But Mr. Löwenfeld had spoken no more than the truth. Broadway at night, seen as a pedestrian at the side of Miss Secker, was astonishing, was marvellous, was unique. The whole sky was alight and pulsing with its magnificence. Twenty moons would not have been noticed. Everything that could happen was happening by electricity. It was Crystal Palace Fireworks, and the Lord Mayor's Show, and Coronation, and Mafeking, and naval manoeuvres with searchlights, all flashing and flaming, blazing and gyrating at the same time. Broadway gleamed white as the north pole, jewelled with rainbow colours, amazing rubies, emeralds, topazes, grouped in letters or forming pictures on invisible frames rising high above tall buildings or appearing on their façades.
Green sea waves billowed brightly, a giant cat winked golden eyes, two brilliant boxers fought an endless round, a dazzling girl put on and took off illuminated gloves; a darky's head, as big as a balloon, ate a special brand of pickled melon; a blue umbrella opened and shut; a great gilded basket dropped ruby roses (Buy them at Perrin Frères); a Japanese Geisha, twice life-size, told you where to get kimonos; a trout larger than a whale appeared and disappeared on a patent hook; and above all, brighter than all, rose against the paling sky from somewhere behind Broadway a pair of titanic hands.