Ben Blair

"You really are interested, then? Would you truly like to know--what you asked?"

"I truly would."

Florence hesitated. Her breath came a trifle more quickly. She had not yet learned the trick of repression of the city folk.

"I think it's wonderful," she said. "Everything is wonderful. I feel like a child in fairyland; only the fairies must be giants. This great building, for instance,--I can't make it seem a product of mere six-foot man! In spite of myself, I keep expecting a great genie to emerge somewhere. I suppose this seems silly to you, but it's the feeling I have, and it makes me realize my own insignificance."

Sidwell smoked in silence.

"That's the first impression--the most vivid one, I think. The next is about the people themselves. I've been here nearly a half-year now, but even yet I stare at them--as you caught me staring to-night--almost with open mouth. To see these men in the daylight hours down town one would think they cared more for a minute than for their eternal happiness. I'm almost afraid to speak to them, my little affairs seem so tiny in comparison with the big ones it must take to make men work as they do. And then, a little later,--apparently for no other reason than that the sun has ceased to shine,--I see them, as here, for instance, unconscious that not minutes but hours are going by. They all seem to have double lives. I get to thinking of them as Jekylls and Hydes. It makes me a bit afraid."

Still Sidwell smoked in silence, and Florence observed him doubtfully. "You really wish me to chatter on in this way?" she asked.

"I was never more interested in my life."

The girl felt her face grow warm. She was glad they were in the shadow, so the man could not see it too clearly. For a moment she looked about her, at the host of skilful waiters, at the crowd of brightly dressed pleasure-seekers, at the kaleidoscopic changes, at the lights and shadows. From somewhere invisible the string orchestra, which for a time had been silent, started up anew, while her answering pulses beat to swifter measure. The air was a familiar one, heard everywhere about town; and she was conscious of a childish desire to join in singing it. The novelty of the scene, the sparkle, the animation, the motion intoxicated her. She leaned back in her seat luxuriously.

"This is life," she murmured. "I never grasped the meaning of the word until within the last few months, but now I begin to understand. To work mightily when one works, to abandon one's self completely when one rests--that is the secret of life."