"Cora," he exclaimed, in undertone, "you're the handsomest woman on the street!"
If there had been anything more remote from his purpose than this meeting, it was this speech. He knew of her presence in the city, he knew her address; but from prudential motives he did not precisely formulate he had determined not to go to her.
"Get in," she murmured, her pleasing color heightening. "We mustn't block the way."
Such superior tact in the face of urban conditions impressed him,—he would have stood gossiping, as in New Babylon's sluggish streets,—and almost without volition he obeyed.
"The Avenue," directed Mrs. Hilliard.
"Which?" asked cabby, his florid face filling the trap.
"Fifth, of course," said the lady, with annoyance.
It has been remarked that Mrs. Hilliard aimed to be cosmopolitan, and it is pertinent to add that one of the chiefest delights of this, her annual pilgrimage, was to ride the livelong day in hansom cabs. People in the sort of fiction she was fondest of "called a hansom" at least once a chapter.
"You never came to see me," she accused, as they drove on.
"You can't know how busy I've been." This was well within the truth, as was his further statement that he knew no good could come of calling at the Waldorf at this hour. "You have proved that I should have missed you."