"One enters my square under a marble arch and we who live there always think of it as the Square."
"But Washington square is a long way," he remonstrated. "It's a far journey to take alone."
The girl had stepped out beyond the curb and signaled, then as the 'bus drew over and came to a stop, she nodded to the man as she started up the stair to the roof. "Good-night, Mr. Burton," she called over her shoulder. "You are a good custodian of secrets."
But the musician was climbing up after her and when she seated herself at the front he took his place beside her. "I am going to answer all questions put to me on the way down to the Square," he announced.
"But you have just complained that it's a far journey."
"I beg your pardon. I said it was a far journey to take alone."
She turned in her seat and looked at him. The lips and brow were reserved, even grave, but in the green-gray eyes danced a truant twinkle. As the heavy vehicle rumbled and lurched along the way where the asphalt fell into shadow she became a graceful silhouette of slenderness, but as they passed through the brighter zones about the great opals swung from the lamp pillars, the dimpled little chin and small nose revealed themselves in a sort of baffling warfare of sauciness and dignity. Paul knew that there were well-held frontiers of reserve and self-containment in this woman's nature, but that back of it lay an alluring playground of mischief.
"And yet we are told," she was saying in a low voice, whose music suddenly impressed the musician, "that—
'Down to Gehenna or up to the throne,
He travels the fastest, who travels alone.'"
"Just at the moment we are not bound for either of those places," he assured her. "We are going to the Square."