The little old lady made no answer. She sat down upon the curb and began silently to sob while her slight body rocked from side to side and her lips whispered words that could not be heard.
“Was there ever such another night?” Petite Jeanne cried, in real distress. She was little and quick, very emotional and quite French.
“We came here for a gay time,” she went on. “And now, see how it is! We have been tossed about from wave to wave by the crowd, which is a sea, and now it has washed us ashore with a weeping old lady we have never seen before and may never see again.”
“Hush!” Florence touched her lips. “You will distress her. You came here to find joy and happiness. Joy and happiness may be found quite as often by serving others less fortunate than ourselves as in any other way. We will see if this is not true.
“Come!” She placed gentle hands beneath the bent form of the little, old lady on the curb. “Come, now. There is a bright little tea room right over there. A good cup of black tea will cheer you. Then you must tell us all about it.”
A look of puzzled uncertainty gave way to a smile on the wrinkled face as this strange derelict of the night murmured:
“Tea. Yes, yes, a good cup of black tea.”
The tea room was all but deserted. On this wild night of nights people did not eat. Vendors of ice cream sandwiches found no customers. Baskets of peanuts were more likely to be tumbled into the street than eaten. The throng had indeed become a wild, stormy sea. And a stormy sea neither eats nor sleeps.
“Tell me,” said Florence, as the hot tea warmed the white-haired one’s drowsy blood, “why did you weep at the loss of a shoe?”
“A shoe?” The little old lady seemed puzzled. She looked down at her feet. “A shoe? Ah, yes! It is true. One shoe is gone.