filled the ears of Robert Orme not unpleasantly.
He liked Chicago, felt towards the Western city something more than the
tolerant, patronizing interest which so often characterizes the Eastern
man. To him it was the hub of genuine Americanism--young, aggressive,
perhaps a bit too cocksure, but ever bounding along with eyes toward
the future. Here was the city of great beginnings, the city of
experiment--experiment with life; hence its incompleteness--an
incompleteness not dissimilar to that of life itself. Chicago lived; it
was the pulse of the great Middle West.

Orme watched the procession with clear eyes. He had been strolling
southward from the Masonic Temple, into the shopping district. The
clangor, the smoke and dust, the hurrying crowds, all worked into his
mood. The expectation of adventure was far from him. Nor was he a man who
sought impressions for amusement; whatever came to him he weighed, and
accepted or rejected according as it was valueless or useful. Wholesome
he was; anyone might infer that from his face. Doubtless, his fault lay
in his overemphasis on the purely practical; but that, after all, was a
lawyer's fault, and it was counterbalanced by a sweet kindliness toward
all the world--a loveableness which made for him a friend of every chance
acquaintance.

It was well along in the afternoon, and shoppers were hurrying homeward.
Orme noted the fresh beauty of the women and girls--Chicago has reason to
be proud of her daughters--and his heart beat a little faster. Not that
he was a man to be caught by every pretty stranger; but scarcely
recognized by himself, there was a hidden spring of romance in his
practical nature. Heart-free, he never met a woman without wondering
whether she was _the_ one. He had never found her; he did not know that
he was looking for her; yet always there was the unconscious question.

A distant whistle, the clanging of gongs, the rapid beat of galloping
hoofs--fire-engines were racing down the street. Cars stopped, vehicles
of all kinds crowded in toward the curbs.

Orme paused and watched the fire horses go thundering by, their smoking
chariots swaying behind them and dropping long trails of sparks. Small
boys were running, men and women were stopping to gaze after the passing
engines, but Orme's attention was taken by something that was happening
near by, and as the gongs and the hoof-beats grew fainter he looked with
interest to the street beside him.

He had got as f