light-heeled and
full of laughter.

"Whoops, my dear!"

"Whoa!"

* * * * *

At a turn in the dark street the lights of the Bridge flashed suddenly
upon them, swung in high festoons across an infinitude of night. Above,
a few majestic stars, new coined, gleamed in a clear sky.

"What do you bet that with me at the wheel we can clear the Bridge in
thirty minutes, Phonzie?"

"Sure we can; but here, let me shove."

She elbowed him aside, the banter gone suddenly from her voice.

"No, let me."

She fell to pushing it silently along. Stars came out in her eyes. He
advanced to her pace, matching his stride to hers, fancies like colored
beads slipping along the slender thread of his thoughts.

"Swell sight, ain't it, Gert, the harbor lights so bright and the sky so
deep?"

Silence.

"Seeing so much sky all at once reminds me, Gert. You know about that
midnight--blue satin Hertz had the brass to dump back on us because the
skirt was too tight. Huh?"

Her eyes were far and away.

"Huh, whatta you know about that, Gert?"

Her hands, gripped around the handle-bars, were full of nerves; she
could feel them jumping in her palm.

"Huh, Gert?"

"What you say, Phonzie?"

"All right, don't answer. Moon all you like, for my part." And he fell
to whistling as he strode beside her, his eyes on the light-spangled
outline of the city.

* * * * *

At twelve o'clock the lights in the lower hall of the up-town
apartment-house had been extinguished. All but one, which burned like
a tired eye beneath the ornate staircase. The misty quiet of midnight,
which is as heavy as a veil, hung in the corridors. Miss Gertie Dobriner
entered first and, holding wide the door between them, Alphonse
Michelson at the front wheels, they tilted the white carriage up the
narrow staircase, their whispers floating through the gloom.

"Easy there, Phonzie!"

"There!"

"Watch out!"

"Whew! that was a close shave!"

"Here, let me unlock the door. 'Sh-h-h!"

"Don't go, Gert. Come on in, and after the big show I'll send you home
in a cab."

"Nix! After a three-hour walk, a street-car will look good enough to
me."

"Well, then, come on in, just a minute, Gert. I want you to see the fun.
What you bet she's asleep in the front room, sore as thunder, too? We'll
sneak back and dump the kid in and wheel him in on her."

"Aw no! I--I got to go now, Phonzie."

"Come on, Gert,