Under the arclight that spluttered pink and green-edged violet the man in the checked suit passed two girls. The full-lipped oval face of the girl nearest to him; her eyes were like a knifethrust. He walked a few paces then turned and followed them fingering his new satin necktie. He made sure the horseshoe diamond pin was firm in its place. He passed them again. Her face was turned away. Maybe she was.... No he couldn’t tell. Good luck he had fifty dollars on him. He sat on a bench and let them pass him. Wouldnt do to make a mistake and get arrested. They didnt notice him. He followed them down the path and out of the Park. His heart was pounding. I’d give a million dollars for ... Pray pardon me, isn’t this Miss Anderson? The girls walked fast. In the crowd crossing Columbus Circle he lost sight of them. He hurried down Broadway block after block. The full lips, the eyes like the thrust of a knife. He stared in girls’ faces right and left. Where could she have gone? He hurried on down Broadway.
Ellen was sitting beside her father on a bench at the Battery. She was looking at her new brown button shoes. A glint of sunlight caught on the toes and on each of the little round buttons when she swung her feet out from under the shadow of her dress.
“Think how it’d be,” Ed Thatcher was saying, “to go abroad on one of those liners. Imagine crossing the great Atlantic in seven days.”
“But daddy what do people do all that time on a boat?”
“I dunno ... I suppose they walk round the deck and play cards and read and all that sort of thing. Then they have dances.”
“Dances on a boat! I should think it’d be awful tippy.” Ellen giggled.
“On the big modern liners they do.”
“Daddy why dont we go?”
“Maybe we will some day if I can save up the money.”