We were standing by the doorway of the exhibition when a slim figure in grey brushed past us and entered. I started, I could not be mistaken—it was the heroine of my story The Girl Who Looked Interesting.
“Who’s that, Professor—the girl who’s just gone in?”
“That,” said O’Flather, with a shrug, “why, that’s the young woman wot feeds the fleas.”
CHAPTER IX
THE CHEWING GUM OF DESTINY
Allured by a sign: “A Cut off the Joint for Sixpence,” I lunched in a little eating-house off Tottenham Court Road. I was at the tapioca pudding stage of the repast, and in a mood of singular complacency.
“Six weeks have gone,” I pondered. “I have spent nearly a third of the sum I realised from the sale of Guinivere’s engagement ring. In my ambition to fail in the world, already I have accomplished much. Behold! my boots are cracked across the uppers. Regard! the suggestive glossiness of my coat-sleeves. Observe! the bluey brilliancy of my celluloid collar. Oh, mighty Mammon, chain me to thine oar! Grind me, Oppression, ’neath thy ruthless heel! Minions of Monopoly, hound me to despair!—not all your powers combined in fell intent can so inspire me with the spirit of Democracy as can the sticky feel of this celluloid collar around my neck!”
With which sentiment I lit a cigarette, and took from my pocket a copy of the Gotham Gazette. I had seen it looking very foreign and forlorn in a news-agents, and had bought it out of pity for its loneliness. I was glancing through it when a name seemed to leap at me, and I felt my heart stand still. I read:
“Yesterday afternoon patrician Fifth Avenue was the scene of a saddening incident. It was almost opposite Tiffany’s, and the autos were passing in a continuous stream. At this time and this place it is almost as difficult to cross the Rubicon as to cross the Avenue; yet, taking advantage of a lull in the traffic, a well-dressed man—who has since been identified as Charles Fitzbarrington, an ex-army officer resident in Harlem—was observed to make the daring attempt. Half way over he was seen to stumble, and come to the ground. Those who saw the rash act held their breaths, and when the nearest spectators could reach him to rescue him from his perilous position, they found to their surprise that the man was dead....”
I dropped the paper with a groan. Captain Fitzbarrington dead! Mrs. Fitz free! My promise to marry her! The terrible twins! Oh, God....
“Alas!” I cried, “I am undone!—betrayed by an incurably romantic disposition; asphyxiated in the effervescence of my own folly; ignominiously undone!”