Then his attention was diverted by a small group of tiny girls dancing
on the sidewalk to the husky strains of an old hurdy-gurdy. He joined
the circle of amused spectators, to watch those pink-ribboned bits of
femininity swaying airily to and fro in unison with the tune. One
especially attracted his notice--a slim olive-coloured girl from a land
where it is always spring. Her whole being translated into music, with
hair dishevelled and feet hardly touching the ground, the girl suggested
an orange-leaf dancing on a sunbeam. The rasping street-organ,
perchance, brought to her melodious reminiscences of some flute-playing
Savoyard boy, brown-limbed and dark of hair.

For several minutes Reginald Clarke followed with keen delight each
delicate curve her graceful limbs described. Then--was it that she grew
tired, or that the stranger's persistent scrutiny embarrassed her?--the
music oozed out of her movements. They grew slower, angular, almost
clumsy. The look of interest in Clarke's eyes died, but his whole form
quivered, as if the rhythm of the music and the dance had mysteriously
entered into his blood.

He continued his stroll, seemingly without aim; in reality he followed,
with nervous intensity, the multiform undulations of the populace,
swarming through Broadway in either direction. Like the giant whose
strength was rekindled every time he touched his mother, the earth,
Reginald Clarke seemed to draw fresh vitality from every contact with
life.

He turned east along Fourteenth street, where cheap vaudevilles are
strung together as glass-pearls on the throat of a wanton. Gaudy
bill-boards, drenched in clamorous red, proclaimed the tawdry