ce and
gray mustache, and his tight dress coat, that made the back of his
neck roll up just like a successful novelist's.

They drove in a cab to the Cafe Terence, just off the most glittering
part of Broadway, which, as every one knows, is one of the most
popular and widely patronized, jealously exclusive Bohemian resorts
in the city.

Down between the rows of little tables tripped Medora, of the Green
Mountains, after her escort. Thrice in a lifetime may woman walk upon
clouds--once when she trippeth to the altar, once when she first
enters Bohemian halls, the last when she marches back across her
first garden with the dead hen of her neighbor in her hand.

There was a table set, with three or four about it. A waiter buzzed
around it like a bee, and silver and glass shone upon it. And,
preliminary to the meal, as the prehistoric granite strata heralded
the protozoa, the bread of Gaul, compounded after the formula of
the recipe for the eternal hills, was there set forth to the hand
and tooth of a long-suffering city, while the gods lay beside their
nectar and home-made biscuits and smiled, and the dentists leaped for
joy in their gold-leafy dens.

The eye of Binkley fixed a young man at his table with the Bohemian
gleam, which is a compound of the look of the Basilisk, the shine of
a bubble of Wuerzburger, the inspiration of genius and the pleading of
a panhandler.

The young man sprang to his feet. "Hello, Bink, old boy!" he shouted.
"Don't tell me you were going to pass our table. Join us--unless
you've another crowd on hand."

"Don't mind, old chap," said Binkley, of the fish-stall. "You know
how I like to butt up against the fine arts. Mr. Vandyke--Mr.
Madder--er--Miss Martin, one of the elect also in art--er--"

The introduction went around. There were also Miss Elise and Miss
'Toinette. Perhaps they were models, for they chattered of the St.
Regis decorations and Henry James--and they did it not badly.

Medora sat in transport. Music--wild, intoxicating music made by
troubadours direct from a rear basement room in Elysium--set her
thoughts to dancing. Here was a world never before penetrated by her
warmest imagination or any of the lines controlled by Harriman. With
the Green Mountains' external calm upon her she sat, her soul flaming
in her with the fire of Andalusia. The tables were filled with
Bohemia. The room was full of the fragrance of flowers--both mille
and cauli. Questions and corks popped; l