“No more of the old aimlessness, Susan. No more books—except a look at yours now and then, because they were yours. God, girl, I'm creating! I'm living! I'm saying something. And I really seem to have it to say. That's what stirs you, puts a tingle into your blood.”
She studied him a moment longer, then lowered her eyes. “Let's be starting,” she said.
“Up Fifth Avenue, Sue?”
“Oh, yes, Henry!”
They walked eastward on Waverly Place, across Sixth Avenue. She paused here and looked up almost fondly at the ugly, shadowy elevated structure in the twilight. A train roared by.
“I haven't seen the city for two months,” she said.
“That's a long time—-for a live person,” said he.
The dusty foliage of Washington Square appeared ahead. Above it like a ghost of the historic beauty of the old Square, loomed the marble arch. The lights of early evening twinkled from street poles and shone warmly from windows.
They turned up the Avenue whose history is the history of a century of New York life. Through the wide canyon darted the taxis and limousines that marked the beginnings of the city's night activity. The walks were thronged with late workers hurrying to their homes in the tenements to the south and west.
The Parisian restaurant was bright with silver, linen and electric lights behind the long French windows. He caught Sue giving the old place a sober, almost wistful glance.