If I hadn't known him so well, I might still have been in durance vile,
next door to jail, or securely inside. I had frequently dined with him
at the club during the summer, and he had offered to put me up; but as
I knew no one intimately but himself, I explained the futility of such
action. Besides, my horse wasn't a hunter; and I was riding him less
and less. It is no pleasure to go "parking" along the bridle-paths of
Central Park. For myself, I want a hill country and something like
forty miles, straight away; that's riding.

The fact that I knew no one but Teddy added zest to the inspiration
which had seized me. For I determined to attend that dance, happen
what might. It would be vastly more entertaining than a possibly dull
theatrical performance. (It was!)

I called for a messenger and despatched him to the nearest drug store
for a pack of playing-cards; and while I waited for his return I
casually glanced at the other diners. At my table--one of those long
marble-topped affairs by the wall--there was an old man reading a
paper, and the handsomest girl I had set eyes upon in a month of moons.
Sometimes the word handsome seems an inferior adjective. She was
beautiful, and her half-lidded eyes told me that she was anywhere but
at Mouquin's. What a head of hair! Fine as a spider's web, and the
dazzling yellow of a wheat-field in a sun-shower! The irregularity of
her features made them all the more interesting. I was an artist in an
amateur way, and I mentally painted in that head against a Rubens
background. The return of the messenger brought me back to earth; for
I confess that my imagination had already leaped far into the future,
and this girl across the way was nebulously connected with it.

I took the pack of cards, ripped off the covering, tossed aside the