He had a fancy to lunch at a little place on Thirty-third Street, where they served a soup with noodles that was in itself a hearty meal. In the days when money had been scarce the little German café had furnished many a feast. Now and then he and his mother had come together, and had talked of how, when their ship came in, they would dine at the big hotel around the corner.
And now that his ship was in, and he could afford the big hotel, it had no charms. He hated the women dawdling in its alleys, the men smoking in its corridors, the whole idle crowd, lunching in acres of table-crowded space.
So he set as his goal the clean little restaurant, and swung along toward it with something of his old boyish sense of elation.
And then a strange thing happened. For the first time in months he found his heart marking time to the tune of the song which old Ben's hoofs had beaten out of the roads as they made their way up into the hills—
"I think she was the most beautiful lady,
That ever was in the West Country——"
He was even humming it under his breath, unheard amid the hum and stir of the crowded city street.
The shops on either side of him displayed in their low windows a wealth of tempting things. Rugs with a sheen like the bloom of a peach—alabaster in curved and carved bowls and vases, old prints in dull gilt frames—furniture following the lines of Florentine elaborateness—his eyes took in all the color and glow, though he rarely stopped for a closer view.
In front of one broad window, however, he hesitated. The opening of the door had spilled into the frosty air of this alien city the scent of the Orient—the fragrance of incense—of spicy perfumed woods.
In the window a jade god sat high on a teakwood pedestal. A string of scarlet beads lighted a shadowy corner. On an ancient and priceless lacquered cabinet were enthroned two other gods of gold and ivory. A crystal ball reflected a length of blue brocade. A clump of Chinese bulbs bloomed in an old Ming bowl.
Richard went into the shop. Subconsciously, he went with a purpose. But the purpose was not revealed to him until he came to a case in which was set forth a certain marvelous collection. He knew then that the old song and the scents had formed an association of ideas which had lured him away from the streets and into the shop, that he might buy for Anne Warfield a sandalwood fan.
