All that day the dull, foreboding feeling had been assailing her at intervals, and she had been unable to free herself entirely from the vague depression.
The day had been grey; when she left the house a drizzle had begun to wet the flagstones, and every lamp-post was now hooded with ghostly iridescence.
She walked because she had need of exercise, not even deigning to unfurl her umbrella against the mist which spun silvery ovals over every electric globe along Fifth Avenue, and now shrouded every building above the fourth story in a cottony ocean of fog.
When finally she turned westward, the dark obscurity of the cross-street seemed to stretch away into infinite night and she hurried a little, scarcely realising why.
There did not seem to be a soul in sight––she noticed that––yet suddenly, halfway down the street, she discovered a man walking at her elbow, his rubber-shod feet making no sound on the wet walk.
Palla had never before been annoyed by such attentions in New York, yet she supposed it must be the reason for the man’s insolence.
She hastened her steps; he moved as swiftly.
“Look here,” he said, “I know who you are, and where you’re going. And we’ve stood just about enough from you and your friends.”
In the quick revulsion from annoyance and disgust to a very lively flash of fright, Palla involuntarily slackened her pace and widened the distance between her and this unknown.