“Let’s go to a midnight show somewhere,” a peevish wife-voice suggested.
“No, sir!” a gruff husband-voice answered. “Li’l’ ole beddo looks pretty good to muh. I can’t hit the hay too soon.”
“What’s Broadway got on Market Street?” a blithe boy’s voice demanded. “Take the view from Twin Peaks at night. Why, it has Broadway beat forty ways from the jack.”
“I’ll say so!” a girl’s voice agreed.
Theaters were empty now, but restaurants were filling. In an incredibly short time, this phantasmagoria of movement, this kaleidoscope of color, this hurly-burly of sound had shattered, melted, fallen to silence. People disappeared as though by magic from the street; now there were great gaps of sidewalk where nobody appeared. Susannah—both of her, because now she seemed to have become two people permanently—felt lonely. She quickened her pace, her floating rather, to catch up with a figure ahead. It was a girl, just an everyday girl, in a white linen suit and a white sailor hat topping a mass of black hair. She carried a handbag. Susannah found herself following, step by step, behind this girl whose face she had as yet not seen. She was floating; yet every time she tried to see the top of that sailor hat her vision became blurred. It was annoying; but this stealthy pursuit was pleasant, somehow—satisfying.
“They’ve been shadowing me,” said Susannah to herself. “Now I’m shadowing. I’ve helped the Carbonado Company to rob orphans. I’m going to break my promise to go to Jamaica tomorrow. Isn’t it glorious to float and be a criminal!”
So she followed westward on Forty-second Street and reached the Public Library corner of Fifth Avenue, which stretched now deserted except where knots of people awaited the omnibusses. Such a knot had gathered on that corner. Suddenly the girl in white raised her hand, waved; a woman in a light-blue summer evening gown answered her signal from the crowd; they ran toward each other. They were going to have a talk. Susannah floated toward them. The air-currents made her a little wabbly—but wasn’t it fun, eavesdropping and caring not the least bit about manners!
“My train doesn’t start until one,” said the white linen suit. “It’s no use going back to my room—the night is so hot. I’ve been to the Summer Garden, and I’m killing time.”
“Oh,” asked blue dress, “did you sublet your room?”