for she had gone.




CHAPTER VI


PLOT AND COUNTER-PLOT

Mr. Heatherbloom drifted; not "looking for a way", one was forced upon
him. It came to him unexpectedly; chance served him. He would have
thrust it from him but could not. During his more or less eccentric
peregrinations in Central Park he had formed visual acquaintances with
sundry folk; pictures of some of them were very dimly impressed on his
consciousness, others--and the major part--on his subconsciousness.

Flat faces, big faces, red faces, pale faces! One countenance in the
last class made itself a trifle more insistent than the others. Its
possessor had watched with interest his progress, interrupted with
entanglements, and had listened to the music of his march, the canine
fantasia, staccato, affettuoso! Mr. Heatherbloom's halting footsteps
in the park generally led him to the heights; it wasn't a very high
point, but it was the highest he could find, and he could look off on
something--a lake, or reservoir of water, he didn't know just which, and
a jagged sky-line.

The person that exhibited casual curiosity in his movements and his
coming thither was a woman. She seemed slight and sinuous, sitting there
against the stone parapet, and deep dark eyes accentuated the pallor of