g.

Though she raised her face, he could distinguish no feature, for the
light was behind. However, he was a man who made up his mind quickly.
Brunette or blond, beautiful or otherwise, it needed but a moment to
find out. Even as this decision was made he was in the upper hall,
taking the stairs two at a bound. He ran out into the night, bareheaded.
Up the street he saw a flying shadow. Plainly she had anticipated his
impulse and the curiosity behind it. Even as he gave chase the shadow
melted in the fog, as ice melts in running waters, as flame dissolves in
sunshine. She was gone. He cupped his ear with his hand; in vain, there
came no sound as of pattering feet; there was nothing but fog and
silence.

"Well, if this doesn't beat the Dutch!" he murmured.

He laughed disappointedly. It did not matter that he was three and
thirty; he still retained youth enough to feel chagrined at such a
trivial defeat. Here had been something like a genuine adventure, and it
had slipped like water through his clumsy fingers.

"Deuce take the fog! But for that I'd have caught her."

But reason promptly asked him what he should have done had he caught the
singer. Yes, supposing he had, what excuse would he have had to offer?
Denial on her part would have been simple, and righteous indignation at
being accosted on the street simpler still. He had not seen her face,
and doubtless she was aware of this fact. Thus, she would have had all
the weapons for defense and he not one for attack. But though reason
argued well, it did not dislodge his longing. He would have been
perfectly happy to have braved her indignation for a single glance at
her face. He walked back, lighting his pipe. Who could she be? What
peculiar whimsical freak had sent her singing past his window at one
o'clock of the morning? A grand opera singer, returning home from a late
supper? But he dismissed this opinion even as he advanced it. He knew
something about grand opera singers. They attend late suppers, it is
true, but they ride home in luxurious carriages and never risk their
golden voices in this careless if romantic fashion. And in New York
nobody took the trouble to serenade anybody else, unless paid in advance
and armed with a police permit. As for being a comic-opera star, he
refused to admit the possibility; and he relegated this well-satisfied
constellation to the darks of limbo. He had heard a Voice.

A vast, shadow loomed up in the middle of the street, p