Tom left him, walked across the Avenue to the Park, and sat down on a bench. He settled down to think calmly over the mysterious affair, and looked about him.
The grass in the turf places had taken on a definite green, as though it were May. The trees were not yet in leaf, making the grass-greenness seem a trifle premature, but Tom noticed that the buds on the trees and shrubs were bursting; there were little feathery tips of tender red and pale green—tiny wings about to flutter upward because the sun and the sky beckoned to them to go where it was bright and warm. The sky was of a spotless turquoise, as though the spring cleaning up there had been thorough. The clouds were of silver freshly burnished for the occasion. The air was alive, laden with subtle thrills; it throbbed invisibly, as though the light were life, and life were love. He saw hundreds of sparrows, and they all twittered; and all the twitterings were very, very shrill, and yet very, very musical. And also they twittered in couples that hopped and darted and aerially zigzagged—always together and always twittering!
A policeman stopped and said something to a nurse-maid. The nurse-maid said something to the policeman. He was young and she was pretty. Then the policeman said nothing to the nurse-maid, and the nurse-maid said nothing to the policeman. Then two faces turned red. Then one face nodded yes. Then the other face walked away, swinging a club; and—by all that was marvelous!—swinging the club in time to the tune the sparrows were twittering—in couples—the same tune, as though the club-swinger's soul were whistling it!
Tom smiled uncertainly—he wanted to give money, lots of it, to the policeman and to the nursemaid; and he knew it was impossible—it was too obviously the intelligent thing to do! So, instead, he drew a deep breath.
Instantly there came to him not the odor of spring and of green things growing, but of sweet peas and summer winds, and changing, evanescent faces, pink-and-white as flowers, with flower-odor associations and eyes full of glints and brightnesses that recalled dewdrops and sunlight and stars. And these glittering points shifted in tune to the twittering of birds and the swinging of Park policemen's clubs.
Love was in the air! Love was making Tom Mer-riwether impatient, as that love which is the love of loving always makes the mateless man.
He could no longer sit calmly. He could not sit at all. He craved to do something, to do anything, so long as it was motion. Therefore he walked briskly northward. At Ninetieth Street he halted abruptly. He had begun to walk mechanically and he could think of what he did not wish to think. So he shook himself free from the spell and walked back.
An hour had passed. He again rang the bell of 777. The same footman opened the door.
“Is he in?” asked Tom, impatiently.
“Yes, sir—he is, sir. I told him the moment he came in, sir.” He looked as uncomfortable as a lifelong habit of impassivity permitted.