“Yes, the people seem to take a personal pride in the weather.”
“It’s as though they had something to do with it themselves.”
“That’s right I noticed it the first year I was here.”
“You’re not a New Yorker, then?”
“Oh, no; my home’s in San Francisco. I only came East three years ago to go to college.”
“I thought you were ... one of the girls at the office mentioned you were a Princeton man.”
“I was, but I ... well, I flunked out at Christmas. I was tired of college, anyway. I wanted to go into newspaper work, but I couldn’t get a job with any of the metropolitan dailies, so temporarily I am trying to help sell the Universal History of the World.”
They talked at random, the man inclined to give more of his personal history; the girl, pretending indifference, commented on the steady encroachment of stores upon these sacred fastnesses, the homes of the rich. She interrupted him with an exclamation every now and then, to point out some object of interest on the street, or something in a shop window.
It was thrilling to be walking together down the brilliant Avenue in the soft, morning sunshine. They paused at Madison Square before beginning to weave their way through the traffic of the street, and striking across the Park, gay with beds of yellow tulips, trees budding into leaf, and fountains playing. Roy put his hand under the girl’s forearm to guide her. The touch of his fingers burnt, and set her pulses thrilling. She pointedly disengaged herself, withdrawing her arm, when they reached the farther side of the Avenue.
Crossing the Square, she glanced at him critically once more. He seemed absurdly young,—a mere college boy with his cloth hat at a youthful angle, his slim young shoulders sharply outlined in the belted jacket. It was possible he was a few years her senior, but she felt vastly older.