the hope of getting back secrets that lay behind the masks. She was unaware how her direct gaze riveted attention to her own eager face. She thought the people who smiled at her were friendly, and she tossed them back as good as they gave. Even when a waxed and fashionable old dandy remarked, “Good morning, my dear,” she only laughed. Naturally, he misunderstood, and fell in step beside her.
“Are you alone?” he asked, coyly.
She gave him a direct glance and answered seriously.
“No. I am walking with my five little brothers and sisters.” He looked at her in such utter amazement that she laughed again. This time he understood.
“Good day,” said he, and right-about-faced.
She knew she had plenty of time, so she sauntered into a bookshop and turned over the new books, thinking that maybe some day she would come into such a shop and ask for her own books, or Jarvis’s published plays. She chatted with a clerk for a few minutes, then went back to the avenue, like a needle to a magnet.
In and out of shops she went. She looked at
