One day a dealer offered him a charming lady’s tricycle, nearly new and of an excellent style, for the low price of seventy-five dollars. Its owner must have money at once. Dewness looked it all over, and was satisfied that he could resell it for at least a hundred, and bought it. And presently he was enjoying the longed-for companionship of Miss May on his excursions, to the envy of various club men and ladies. Besides, he had bids for the tricycle of over a hundred dollars; but he held out for a higher price, at least for the time.
One evening, just after sunset, David’s tricycle stood waiting for him in the street in front of the Bentley home. Miss May had been out with it, and Dewness, after riding his bicycle home and eating his supper, had returned, chatted and laughed awhile with May, and was then to ride home on the tricycle. As he walked down the path to the gate, still smiling at a joke that the vivacious girl had played on him, he suddenly saw a young woman sitting on his tricycle. Her face was partly turned from him, but the graceful pose of her figure, the proud carriage of her head, and a certain noble and womanly life that seemed to pervade and radiate from her presence, struck him as something rarely charming. She was the most vividly distinct of any object visible in the uncertain twilight. And yet there was that about her singularly indistinct.
Mr. Dewness is one of those happily rare men who possess the feminine faculty of seeing what a lady wears. But, unaccountably, he could not tell whether this young woman, who had so coolly taken possession of his tricycle, was dressed in a gray wheeling costume or a dark walking dress. He had stopped suddenly on first seeing her, and now he put both hands on his knees and stooped to get a better view. No use. Her costume seemed to fluctuate, so to speak, alike in colors and style.
But what business had she to be there at all? She certainly was not one of the club ladies, but a stranger. No one he knew possessed, or could possibly assume, that graceful air, or that noble womanliness.
He walked a little nearer. As he did so the figure grew indistinct. Nearer yet. She seemed to fade like the delusion of a magic glass. He stooped down; he stretched himself up on tiptoe—the effect was the same. He passed through the gate, and stood within a dozen feet of the machine. There it stood, waiting for him, motionless and untenanted, just as a respectable Boston-bred tricycle, with ball-bearings and a front-steering handle-bar, ought!
There wasn’t a woman anywhere in sight within a block!
Mr. Dewness whistled the first two bars of “Sweet Little Buttercup” very softly, with his hands thrust into his pockets and his feet planted apart. Then he stopped and reflected a full minute. Then he suddenly cocked his hat back so as to give it a bold, semi-piratical rake, walked up to the machine and put one hand upon the nearest handle, gave it a smart jerk, brushed the other hand across the saddle, as if feeling to see if there was any obstruction there, and began to whistle “I’m a Dutchman” with a fierce and ear-piercing emphasis. Nothing coming of this, he rather gingerly slid into the saddle and melted into the twilight of the distant street.
Two days later, David called again at the Bentley’s to invite Miss May to take a spin with him. May and her mother were sitting upon the piazza. David approached and saluted the ladies, and asked the girl to go for a ride. She greeted him coldly, and declined, to his great surprise. Her manner made him ask for an explanation.
“Who was the lady you took out yesterday?” she asked.
“Nobody. I did not go out yesterday,” he answered, with evident perplexity.