"Oh, I'm an evolutionist," answered Kindelon. "I believe it will all come right by-and-by, like the gigantic unravelling of a gigantic skein.... But such views don't prevent me from feeling the probability of New York being reduced to ashes more than once in the coming centuries."
"Oh, yes, I remember," said Pauline. "There are often the apparent retrogressions—rhythmic variations of movement which temporarily retard all progress in societies."
Kindelon burst into one of his mellowest and heartiest laughs. "You are delicious," he said, "when you try to recollect your Herbert Spencer. You make me think of a flower that has been dropped among the leaves of an Algebra."
"I am not at all sure that I like your simile," said Pauline, tossing her head somewhat. "It is pleasant to be likened to a flower, but in this case it is rather belittling. And if it comes to recollecting my Herbert Spencer, perhaps the process is not one of very violent effort, either."
"Oh," said Kindelon ruefully, "I have offended you."
A sunny smile broke from her lips the next moment. "I can't be offended," she replied, "when I think how you rebuked my absurd outburst of pedantry. Ah! truly a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, and I am afraid I have very little.... How lovely it all is, here," she proceeded, changing the subject, as they now began to move onward, while they still kept close to the edge of the smooth-paven terrace. "And what a pity that our dwelling-houses should all be away from the water! My grandparents—or my great-grandparents, I forget which—once lived close to the Battery. I recollect poor mamma telling me that I had an ancestress whom they used to call the belle of Bowling Green."
"That was certainly in the days before commerce had seized every yard of these unrivalled water-fronts," laughed Kindelon. "Babylon on its Euphrates, or Nineveh on its Tigris, could not eclipse New York in stately beauty if mansions were built along its North and East rivers. But trade is a tyrant, as you see. She concedes to you Fifth Avenue, but she denies you anything more poetic."
"I wonder who is the belle of Bowling Green now?" said Pauline, looking up at her companion with a serio-comic smile.
He shook his head. "I am afraid your favored progenitress was the last of the dynasty."
"Oh, no," dissented Pauline, appearing to muse a trifle. "I fancy there is still a belle. Perhaps she has a German or an Irish name."