With an abrupt leave-taking, Fargus arose and departed eastward. The woman without lightness or geniality had accepted his bow, bobbing her head and, betraying her inexperience by a slight diffident start, reseated herself with embarrassment.
Presently she stood up, smoothed her skirt, tucked her bag under her arm and moved off, clutching her parasol by the waist.
"Oh, a woman who walks like that," Bofinger said to himself as he followed her up Fifth Avenue, "must be virtuous. She's the honest working girl supporting an invalid mother and all that. It's true, such things do happen. Ah, we turn east now."
She had disappeared around the corner of Twelfth Street. Without distrust, Bofinger followed so negligently that on rounding the corner he ran full upon her waiting in ambush. The surprise made him lose his self-possession; he passed hurriedly, without daring to meet her glance. But to his immense relief he saw she had not even noticed him and divined that it was for Fargus alone that she took such precautions.
"Eh, eh! What does that mean?" he said joyfully to himself. But this new hope gradually flickered out, as he considered logically: "After all, she has a right to hide where she lives. Besides, if she were an adventuress, she would have suspected me. That's true, that proves nothing."
He continued eastward and turned north up Irving Place, perceiving to his satisfaction that she would do the same. At Fourteenth Street he covered himself in the crowd, while the woman taking the other side went west to Seventh Avenue, again starting north.
Seeing that she no longer feared pursuit Bofinger approached nearer. At one crossing, to avoid a puddle she caught up her skirts in either hand, the parasol projecting awkwardly.
"She walks like a country school ma'am, going to school in rubber boots!" he thought savagely, finding relief, as his irritation grew, in ridiculing the woman. "How long is she going to keep me trotting after her, I wonder?"
As though in answer to his question she turned west and suddenly mounted the steps of a brown stone front close to the southern corner.
"Respectable, of course!" Bofinger ejaculated, passing and marking the number. He went to Eighth Avenue, descended a block and returned eastward. The respectability of the house completed his dejection, which showed itself in the listless drag of his feet.