“Good gracious, Bumble! I thought your concert began at three.”
“It does,—but was I ever at the beginning of anything?”
Helen calmly accepted her own chronic tardiness as a foregone conclusion, and with a waved farewell, she trotted off.
She was going to her friend’s house for the night, but she greatly desired to go to a concert first, and owing to the different engagements of Patty and Nan, it was inconvenient for the Fairfield car to call for her after the performance.
But she was more than willing to go to her friend’s in a cab by herself, and she had the address safely tucked away in her purse.
The concert was enthralling to Helen’s music-loving soul, and she deeply regretted that her late coming had lost her so much enjoyment.
When it was over, she drifted slowly out with the rest of the crowding audience, and reached the curb, still quivering with the exaltation that fine music always aroused in her.
In a sort of absent-minded way, she suddenly realised that it was snowing hard,—very hard, indeed. A young but vigorous blizzard had set in, and though shielded by the marquise, Helen found herself well covered with snowflakes.
She stepped up to the liveried man at the curb and said:
“Will you please call a taxi for me?”