Presently Dr. Earl hailed a passing taxi-cab, and gave the order to be taken to the Whittier Studios. The drive home was silent. Once or twice Silvia looked at her tall companion. She was frankly curious about the Paris case, but something in the quiet, self-contained face of the man beside her did not invite questions. On his part, John Earl was asking himself why he should have given his confidence to this comparative stranger, and the longer he thought about it the less able was he to answer his question.
CHAPTER VIII
THE OMNIPRESENT EYES OF FIFTH AVENUE
The source of gossip in a village is the corner grocery store; in a small city, what goes on about the public square; in the medium-sized city, what transpires in the leading café; in New York, Fifth Avenue and Central Park are the all-abounding sources of gossip. The Avenue has a thousand curious eyes; those on the sidewalk peering into automobiles and carriages for sensations; those being whirled along in vehicles, straining their power in the quest of salacious information among the throng beyond the curbstone. All New York passes along Fifth Avenue at some time or another. All of one's friends are always passing along that way when one does not particularly wish to be seen by them. If one is walking, the friends are invariably driving; if one is driving, of course the ubiquitous acquaintances are out for a stroll. Sometimes people have been known to escape two-thirds of the omnipresent eyes that line the sidewalks, pack the Avenue and infest the highways of Central Park, but no person has ever been heard of who escaped all of them.
So the lot of our strollers was but the common lot of all, visitors as well as resident New Yorkers.
While mutually absorbed, the one in reciting the tale, the other in listening to it; while diverted and interested by the thousand sparks that radiate from the batteries of youthful energy and enthusiasm and tingle the sensibilities of a congenial comrade; while speculating on the unknown vista from peep-holes that show only fragments, but realizing all the vastness and richness of the world force and universal sympathy possessed by each of them—it is not strange that in four blocks on the Avenue they were passed by two ladies in an automobile, who took more than an ordinary interest in their movements, and by a dark-eyed, dark-haired man in another car, whose eyes gleamed and whose cheeks blanched at the sight of their absorption in each other.
But the things garnered on the Avenue are never placed in cold storage, and soon enough both of them were to hear about this stroll.
When Dr. Earl called that evening to take Mrs. and Miss Kimball to the theatre he discovered that his reception in the morning had been tropical compared to this one. He was compelled to wait fully fifteen minutes before Miss Kimball appeared in house gown and slippers, indicating her purpose to remain at home, and the bearer of a message that her mother begged to be excused, as she had retired with a sick headache.