CHAPTER I
It was a warm still night early in May, and the electric light over the cabstand at the end of the square cast on to the pavement and dusty surface of the dry roadway the elbowed and angular shadows of the still leafless plane-trees, in unwavering lines, as if they were made of some dark marble cunningly inlaid into a grey ground. The dried seed-balls of last year still hung there, and the air was only just sufficient to stir them, so that they oscillated gently to and fro, swinging from side to side in the light breeze that was not strong enough to agitate the twigs and branches that bore them. But in other respects, apart from the merely atmospheric, the square was full enough of movement two houses at least had evening parties going on, and at the end of the square opposite the cabstand there was a dance, and rows of carriages and motors were employed, in endless procession, in unloading their occupants opposite the strip of red carpet that ran across from the curbstone of the pavement to the step of the house. Lights blazed from the windows, sedulous footmen were busy with carriage doors and, a little farther within, with pins and numbered tickets, while from the windows of the first door, open, and screened with awning, the white stripes of which showed luminously in the dark, came the enchanting lilt and rhythm of dance music. Round the other side of the square were lines of ordered carriages and expectant cabs, and from one house or another there constantly sounded the shrill whistles to summon the latter, two whistles for two wheels, and one for four, and the fineness of the night made hansoms the more popular conveyance.
The drawing-room windows of Number 36, next door to the fortunate house with the carriages and the red-carpet, were open, and in the window-seat were two girls, leaning out through the screen of red geranium, yellow calceolaria and lobelia with which the window-boxes had been lately filled, and sipping-cocoa inter-
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