The girl shivered.
“I must go,” she said; “good night.”
For a moment de Vere was about to detain her. The wild thought leaped to his mind to ask her her name or at least her mother’s. With a powerful effort he checked himself.
“Good night,” he said.
She was gone.
CHAPTER II
Limits of space forbid the insertion of the whole of this chapter. Its opening contains one of the most vivid word-pictures of the inside of an American customs house ever pictured in words. From the customs wharf de Vere is driven in a taxi to the Belmont. Here he engages a room; here, too, he sleeps; here also, though cautiously at first, he eats. All this is so admirably described that only those who have driven in a taxi to an hotel and slept there can hope to appreciate it.
Limits of space also forbid our describing in full de Vere’s vain quest in New York of the beautiful creature whom he had met on the steamer and whom he had lost from sight in the aigrette department of the customs house. A thousand times he cursed his folly in not having asked her name.