ashes; a pleasant traffic in magazines and cigarettes and candy
and flowers was incessant, back in the dim wide passageways.

Cherry drifted into the big, deep-carpeted waiting-room; there
were other women there, sunk into the big leather chairs, watching
the doors, and glancing at the clock. The high windows gave
directly upon Powell Street, where cable-cars were grating to and
fro, and where motor-horns honked, but all noises were filtered
here to a sort of monotone, and the effect of the room was of
silence. When a man came hastily in the door one woman rose, there
was a significant smile, a murmured greeting, before the two
vanished.

In a luxurious chair Cherry waited. Peter certainly would not come
in until half-past twelve, perhaps not then. Long before that time
she might decide to go away; meanwhile, this was a pleasant and
restful place to be. It was cool in here, and the murmuring and
waiting women left in the air the delicate scents of perfumes and
of the flowers they wore.

Suddenly, with a spring of her heart against her ribs, she saw
Peter's dark head with its touches of iron gray. Groomed and
brushed scrupulously as always, with the little limp, yet as
always dignified and erect, he came to stand before her, and she
stood up, and their hands met. Flushed and a little confused, she
followed him to an inconspicuous table in a corner of the dining
room. Then the dreamlike unreality and beauty of their hours
together began again. Cherry felt adjusted, untrammelled, at ease;
she felt that all the uncomfortable sensations of the past two
hours were absurd, forgotten.