“The young lady who answers the description,” smiled Arly, delighted with Tim Corman, and she indicated Gail.
“Mr. Allison couldn’t be here,” explained Tim, leading the way to the brightly lighted private car. “We’re to pick him up at Hoadley Park. Miss Sargent, as hostess of the party, is to have charge of everything.”
The side doors slid open as they approached, and they entered the carpeted and draped car, furnished with wicker chairs and a well-stocked buffet. In the forward compartment were three responsible looking men and a motorman, and one of the responsibles, a fat gentleman who did not seem to care how his clothes looked, leaned into the parlour.
“All ready?” he inquired, with an air of concealing a secret impression that women had no business here.
Tim Corman, who had carefully seen to it that he had a seat between Gail and Arly, touched Gail on the glove.
“Ready, thank you,” she replied, glancing brightly at the loosely arrayed fat man, and she could see that immediately a portion of that secret impression was removed.
With an easy glide, which increased with surprising rapidity into express speed, the car slid into the long, glistening tunnel, still moist with the odours of building.
“This is the most stunningly exclusive thing in the world!” exclaimed Lucile Teasdale. “A private subway!”
The Reverend Smith Boyd bent forward. All the way down to the subway entrance he had enjoyed the reversal to that golden age where no one says anything and everybody laughs at it.
“To my mind that is not the greatest novelty,” he observed. “The most enjoyable part of the journey so far has been getting into the subway without paying a nickel.” He glanced over at Gail as he spoke, but only Arly, Lucile and Ted laughed. Tim Corman had adroitly blocked Gail into a corner, and was holding her attention.