"You look edible enough!" he said with forced jocularity.
"Indeed?" she retorted, surprised at such gallantry from one who had heretofore not deigned to pay her compliments. "I'll have to tell my husband about you." Playfully. "But how are things at Miss Van Rolsen's? Anything new?"
Mr. Heatherbloom murmured something about the customary routine; then, even as he spoke, became conscious of a sudden new disconcerting circumstance. The tracks for the up and the down trains on the elevated had widely separated and ran now on the extreme sides of the broad thoroughfare. From his side of the car the young man was afforded a view of the pavement below, between the two sustaining iron structures. A chill shot through him and his smile became set. Gazing down he discerned, on the street beneath and a little to one side of them, a motor-car, speeding fast, apparently bent on keeping up with them.
"How—how's your husband?" he said irrelevantly. The car was keeping up with them.
"Very well, thank you." (Would it reach the next station before them?)
"You—you have a pleasant home?" he asked. (A slight blockade below impeded, momentarily, the "taxi". Mr. Heatherbloom raised his handkerchief to his moist brow.)
"Lovely," she answered. "Are you going far?"
"Brooklyn," he said at random. What were they talking about? (The car was once more under way; fortunately their progress overhead would not be impeded by a press of vehicles.)
"That's where we live—Brooklyn," she said.
"Is it? Got a nice house?" He had practically asked this question before; but he hardly knew what he was saying. A policeman had stopped the "taxi" and was shaking his head, as at a rather "fishy" story. Mr. Heatherbloom by a species of telepathy, seemed to overhear the excited talk waging below.