New York was astir once more, and the daily burden of life settled down again upon myriads of galled shoulders. The rumbling trains had rattled away the blue-bearded mechanic, the pale-faced clerk, and the ferret-eyed anæmic shop girl to their daily “demnition grinds” long before Elaine Willoughby opened her eyes, in the Circassia.
“A breeze of morning moved,” and down the Mall early pedestrians wandered, while the bridle bits rang out merrily on the park cantering paths.
Sedentary citizens had strolled along into the leafy shades for a peep at a cherished book, or a glance at the horrible of horribles in the “New York Whirl,” while the recumbent tramp shook himself and hopefully scuttled forth from his grassy lair to search for vinous refreshment and to craftily elude the inexorable “sparrow cop.”
New York City was awakened in the inverse order of rank, and the passion play of Gotham was on once more.
The splintered lances danced over the fragrant God’s acres of the great pleasure ground to the palace on Central Park west, and as they were gaily reflected from a silver-framed Venetian mirror, they recalled Mrs. Wharton Willoughby to that luxurious life of Gotham in whose fierce splendors there is no rest.
For as burning a flame throbs in the heated maelstrom of Manhattan as in any human eddy of the whole distracted globe.
The congestion of careworn faces had filled the town below Canal Street with its battling disciples of Mammon long before Mrs. Wharton Willoughby stepped into her brougham to seek the counsels of the one man on earth whose integrity was her rock of Gibraltar, Judge Hiram Endicott, her legal adviser and trustee.
For the silver-framed mirror had relentlessly reflected the traces left by the vigil of the night before.
It was the morning after the storm, and no calm had yet soothed the troubled soul of the woman whom thousands envied.
With a fine Gallic perception, Justine, the black-browed, slyest of French maids, had remarked: “Madame n’ a pas bien dormi?” as she arranged the filmy coffee service of Dresden eggshell.