"But I didn't ever know him even! And that was a long time ago!—No, it's some one else, and really a Prince, because he's so splendid! Oh, Johnnie, guess! Guess the most wonderful person ever! Guess a knight! Like Galahad! Oh, he's exactly like Galahad!" Now she gazed past him. There were tears on her eyelashes. Her parted lips were trembling. "I'm too happy almost to live!" she added. Then down went her forehead to rest on her knees, and he saw that she was trembling all over.
There was a long silence. Just at first he had felt inclined to taunt her a little for being so changeable in her affections, so flighty; and it had hurt his opinion of her, this knowledge that she could be disloyal. But now he was curious. Who was really a Prince? and splendid? and like Galahad?
He saw a figure, tall and dark, majestically seated upon a great, bay horse. A cap shaded proud, piercing eyes. A uniform set the rider wholly apart from all the ordinary men hurrying by in both directions. Who in the city of New York was so like a knight as one of those brave, superb, unapproachable, almost royal, creatures, a mounted policeman? ("Fine Irishers," as Mrs. Kukor called them.)
Then Johnnie was reminded of something. "Cis, will y' be married with a red carpet?" he whispered.
She looked up, turning on him a smile so sweet and glowing that it was like a light. "I don't know," she whispered back. "Maybe—if I want one—I think so." Down went her head again.
Now another picture. The carpet was laid. It stretched across the smooth pavement under a long, high, gray canopy. A red carpet and a gray canopy meant just one thing: great wealth. And Johnnie saw Cis following where that carpet led, beside her one of the four richest men in the world. This man was Mr. Astor (or Mr. Vanderbilt, or Mr. Rockefeller, or Mr. Carnegie—any one of the quartette would do). The mounted policeman was still a part of the happy scene, but only in an official capacity, since from the back of his prancing bay he was keeping off the vast crowd that was swarming to see the bridal couple.
And, naturally, the policeman, in spite of his fine uniform, was not to be compared for a moment to the bridegroom. New York had many policemen; it had only one Mr. Astor (or Mr. Vanderbilt, or Mr. Rockefeller, or Mr. Carnegie). Also, the future surroundings of a Mrs. Policeman—what were they when put alongside what Cis would have when she was Mrs. Any-one-of-the-Four? A house as big as the Grand Central Station—that was a certainty. With it would go silk dresses and furs with dozens of little tails to trim them; jewels of the sort Aladdin had sent the Sultan for the Princess Buddir al Buddoor; books in as great a number as Cis cared to buy, all from that store in Fifth Avenue; automobiles like those owned by the Fifty-fifth Street rich man; dishes of massy gold.
"And I betcher I'll ride in one of her cars," he thought; "and I'll read her books!" And at once the future looked rosy and promising.
She began to whisper again, her chin on a knee: "He's got a place for me all picked out! I won't have to go to the factory any more! I'll have pretty clothes, and good things to eat every meal, and see plays and moving-pictures every week, and just have nothing to do but keep house, and sew, and——"
The startled expression on Johnnie's face stopped her. "Keep house?" he repeated, disgusted. "Sew?" These were not matters which should trouble the bride of a millionaire! "What're y' goin' t' do things like that for?"