第166章

"All right," said Drouet, creaking off in his good shoes toward the elevator.The old butterfly was as light on the wing as ever.

On an incoming vestibuled Pullman, speeding at forty miles an hour through the snow of the evening, were three others, all related.

"First call for dinner in the dining-car," a Pullman servitor was announcing, as he hastened through the aisle in snow-white apron and jacket.

"I don't believe I want to play any more," said the youngest, a black-haired beauty, turned supercilious by fortune, as she pushed a euchre hand away from her.

"Shall we go into dinner?" inquired her husband, who was all that fine raiment can make.

"Oh, not yet," she answered."I don't want to play any more, though."

"Jessica," said her mother, who was also a study in what good clothing can do for age, "push that pin down in your tie--it's coming up."

Jessica obeyed, incidentally touching at her lovely hair and looking at a little jewel-faced watch.Her husband studied her, for beauty, even cold, is fascinating from one point of view.

"Well, we won't have much more of this weather," he said."It only takes two weeks to get to Rome."

Mrs.Hurstwood nestled comfortably in her corner and smiled.It was so nice to be the mother-in-law of a rich young man--one whose financial state had borne her personal inspection.

"Do you suppose the boat will sail promptly?" asked Jessica, "if it keeps up like this?"

"Oh, yes," answered her husband."This won't make any difference."

Passing down the aisle came a very fair-haired banker's son, also of Chicago, who had long eyed this supercilious beauty.Even now he did not hesitate to glance at her, and she was conscious of it.With a specially conjured show of indifference, she turned her pretty face wholly away.It was not wifely modesty at all.

By so much was her pride satisfied.

At this moment Hurstwood stood before a dirty four story building in a side street quite near the Bowery, whose one-time coat of buff had been changed by soot and rain.He mingled with a crowd of men--a crowd which had been, and was still, gathering by degrees.

It began with the approach of two or three, who hung about the closed wooden doors and beat their feet to keep them warm.They had on faded derby hats with dents in them.Their misfit coats were heavy with melted snow and turned up at the collars.Their trousers were mere bags, frayed at the bottom and wobbling over big, soppy shoes, torn at the sides and worn almost to shreds.

They made no effort to go in, but shifted ruefully about, digging their hands deep in their pockets and leering at the crowd and the increasing lamps.With the minutes, increased the number.

There were old men with grizzled beards and sunken eyes, men who were comparatively young but shrunken by diseases, men who were middle-aged.None were fat.There was a face in the thick of the collection which was as white as drained veal.There was another red as brick.Some came with thin, rounded shoulders, others with wooden legs, still others with frames so lean that clothes only flapped about them.There were great ears, swollen noses, thick lips, and, above all, red, blood-shot eyes.Not a normal, healthy face in the whole mass; not a straight figure;

not a straightforward, steady glance.

In the drive of the wind and sleet they pushed in on one another.

There were wrists, unprotected by coat or pocket, which were red with cold.There were ears, half covered by every conceivable semblance of a hat, which still looked stiff and bitten.In the snow they shifted, now one foot, now another, almost rocking in unison.

With the growth of the crowd about the door came a murmur.It was not conversation, but a running comment directed at any one in general.It contained oaths and slang phrases.

"By damn, I wish they'd hurry up."

"Look at the copper watchin'."

"Maybe it ain't winter, nuther!"

"I wisht I was in Sing Sing."

Now a sharper lash of wind cut down and they huddled closer.It was an edging, shifting, pushing throng.There was no anger, no pleading, no threatening words.It was all sullen endurance, unlightened by either wit or good fellowship.

A carriage went jingling by with some reclining figure in it.

One of the men nearest the door saw it.

"Look at the bloke ridin'."

"He ain't so cold."

"Eh, eh, eh!" yelled another, the carriage having long since passed out of hearing.

Little by little the night crept on.Along the walk a crowd turned out on its way home.Men and shop-girls went by with quick steps.The cross-town cars began to be crowded.The gas lamps were blazing, and every window bloomed ruddy with a steady flame.Still the crowd hung about the door, unwavering.

"Ain't they ever goin' to open up?" queried a hoarse voice, suggestively.

This seemed to renew the general interest in the closed door, and many gazed in that direction.They looked at it as dumb brutes look, as dogs paw and whine and study the knob.They shifted and blinked and muttered, now a curse, now a comment.Still they waited and still the snow whirled and cut them with biting flakes.On the old hats and peaked shoulders it was piling.It gathered in little heaps and curves and no one brushed it off.

In the centre of the crowd the warmth and steam melted it, and water trickled off hat rims and down noses, which the owners could not reach to scratch.On the outer rim the piles remained unmelted.Hurstwood, who could not get in the centre, stood with head lowered to the weather and bent his form.