Sommers shook his head negatively, and Miss Hitchcock, who was putting on her veil, did not urge him to join them. The Hitchcock carriage was waiting outside the Twenty-second Street station, and, as the train moved on, Sommers could see Colonel Hitchcock's bent figure through the open window.
When Sommers left the train at the central station, the September twilight had already fallen; and as he crossed the strip of park where the troops had bivouacked during the strike, the encircling buildings were brilliantly outlined in the evening mist by countless points of light. The scene from Twelfth Street north to the river, flanked by railroad yards and grim buildings, was an animated circle of a modern inferno. The cross streets intersecting the lofty buildings were dim, canon-like abysses, in which purple fog floated lethargically. The air was foul with the gas from countless locomotives, and thick with smoke and the mist of the lake. And through this earthy steam, the myriad lights from the facades of the big buildings shone with suffused splendor. It was large and vague and, above all, gay, with the grim vivacity of a city of shades. Streams of people were flowing toward the railroad, up and down the boulevard, in and out of the large hotels. A murmur of living, striving humanity rose into the murky air; and from a distance, through the abysses of the cross streets, sounded the deeper roar of the city.
The half-forgotten note of the place struck sharply upon the doctor's ear. It excited him in some strange way. Two years had dropped from his life, and again he was turning, turning, with the beat of the great machine.
CHAPTER XII
"Yes, he lost that—what was left when you sold for him," Miss M'Gann admitted dejectedly. "And so we had to start over again. Part of it was mine, too."
"Did he put your savings in?" Sommers asked incredulously.
"It was that Dresser man. I wish we'd never laid eyes on him—he kept getting tips from Carson, the man who owned most of his paper. I guess Carson didn't take much interest in giving him the right tip, or perhaps Dresser didn't give us what he knew straight out. Anyway, Jack's been losing!"
"So you aren't married?" Sommers asked.
"Jack's pride is up. You see he wanted to begin with a nice flat, not live on here in this boarding-house. And I was to leave the school. But I guess there isn't much chance now. You've been away a long time—to the war?"
They were sitting on the steps of the Keystone, which at this hour in the morning they had to themselves. Miss M'Gann's glory of dress had faded, together with the volubility of her talk, and the schoolroom air had blanched her high color.