“Luckily there was such a crowd when we came out of the hotel that no one could possibly have noticed me,” she murmured over again, reassured by the sense of having the long thoroughfare to herself. Composure and presence of mind were so necessary to a woman in her situation that they had become almost a second nature to her, and in a few minutes her thick uneven heart-beats began to subside and to grow steadier. As if to test their regularity, she paused before a florist’s window, and looked appreciatively at the jars of roses and forced lilac, the compact bunches of lilies-of-the-valley and violets, the first pots of close-budded azaleas. Finally she opened the shop-door, and after examining the Jacqueminots and Marshal Niels, selected with care two perfect specimens of a new silvery-pink rose, waited for the florist to wrap them in cotton-wool, and slipped their long stems into her muff for more complete protection.
“It’s so simple, after all,” she said to herself as she walked on. “I’ll tell him that as I was coming up Fifth Avenue from Cousin Cecilia’s I heard the fire-engines turning into Twenty-third Street, and ran after them. Just what he would have done ... once ...” she ended on a sigh.
At Thirty-first Street she turned the corner with a quicker step. The house she was approaching was low and narrow; but the Christmas holly glistening between frilled curtains, the well-scrubbed steps, the shining bell and door-knob, gave it a welcoming look. From garret to basement it beamed like the abode of a happy couple.
As Lizzie Hazeldean reached the door a curious change came over her. She was conscious of it at once—she had so often said to herself, when her little house rose before her: “It makes me feel younger as soon as I turn the corner.” And it was true even today. In spite of her agitation she was aware that the lines between her eyebrows were smoothing themselves out, and that a kind of inner lightness was replacing the heavy tumult of her breast. The lightness revealed itself in her movements, which grew as quick as a girl’s as she ran up the steps. She rang twice—it was her signal—and turned an unclouded smile on her elderly parlourmaid.
“Is Mr. Hazeldean in the library, Susan? I hope you’ve kept up the fire for him.”
“Oh, yes, ma’am. But Mr. Hazeldean’s not in,” said Susan, returning the smile respectfully.
“Not in? With his cold—and in this weather?”
“That’s what I told him, ma’am. But he just laughed—”
“Just laughed? What do you mean, Susan?” Lizzie Hazeldean felt herself turning pale. She rested her hand quickly on the hall table.
“Well, ma’am, the minute he heard the fire-engine, off he rushed like a boy. It seems the Fifth Avenue Hotel’s on fire: there’s where he’s gone.”