“Afraid?” he said triumphantly.
“No, no—memories,” she said involuntarily.
“You?” he said, staring at her.
She nodded, her grip on his arm tightening.
“I remember,” she said, in a whisper.
“She remembers,” he repeated to himself, incapable of ordering his ideas, vastly impressed by an emotion he could not have defined, for he added, “She, too—leading me.” And as though the figure of the child had become merged into the hundred and one shifting memories which walked, dissolved, and returned to his side, he stalked on, his hand on the girl’s shoulder, heavy with his weight. Everything became confused in his mind, Paris, Rome, Florence, London, New York, the crowded boulevards, the Thames Embankment, and the outer fortifications. The blurred uprise of the gas-works settled into the age-worn outline of the Forum, and the next moment, with the wet breath of the river on his face and the vigilant lights of the Palisades bright in the air, he was skirting the Arno, with Fiesole mingling with the stars.
The cold touch of the river wind momentarily revived him. Slowly the Arno faded from his vision. He stood, in puzzled, dawning comprehension, on the long water-front, with its sleeping docks and nodding mastheads. Beyond lay the tragic depths of the river, rolling away like the tears of multitudes, luminous insects crawling back and forth. At his feet, straggling trucks were rumbling heavily; a few all-night cafés, far-spaced, streaked the broad avenue with their gleaming fingers. He shrank back into the city, into the phantasmagoria which closed over his eyes and roared on his senses, back on Broadway once more, with its occasional taxi, bright with late revelers.
At Sixty-first Street he halted before the revolving facets of the entrance to Costello’s. The footman without saluted him and called him by name. A few parties, with sudden bursts of white satin and colored brilliance, were leaving the noisy salons. Others returning from earlier rounds of gaiety were pressing through, like fluttering, many-tinted butterflies.
“I’m going in,” he said sullenly.
“If you want to,” she answered.