The pavements became tossing seas of umbrellas.  Men stepped forth to hail cabs or cars, raising their fingers in varied forms of polite request or imperative demand.  An endless procession wended toward elevated stations.  An atmosphere of pleasure and prosperity seemed to hang over the throng, born, perhaps, of good clothes and of having just emerged from a place of forgetfulness.

In the mingled light and gloom of an adjacent park, a handful of wet wanderers, in attitudes of chronic dejection, was scattered among the benches.

A girl of the painted cohorts of the city went along the street.  She threw changing glances at men who passed her, giving smiling invitations to men of rural or untaught pattern and usually seeming sedately unconscious of the men with a metropolitan seal upon their faces.

Crossing glittering avenues, she went into the throng emerging from the places of forgetfulness.  She hurried forward through the crowd as if intent upon reaching a distant home, bending forward in her handsome cloak, daintily lifting her skirts and picking for her well-shod feet the dryer spots upon the pavements.

The restless doors of saloons, clashing to and fro, disclosed animated rows of men before bars and hurrying barkeepers.

A concert hall gave to the street faint sounds of swift, machine-like music, as if a group of phantom musicians were hastening.

A tall young man, smoking a cigarette with a sublime air, strolled near the girl.  He had on evening dress, a moustache, a chrysanthemum, and a look of ennui, all of which he kept carefully under his eye.  Seeing the girl walk on as if such a young man as he was not in existence, he looked back transfixed with interest.  He stared glassily for a moment, but gave a slight convulsive start when he discerned that she was neither new, Parisian, nor theatrical.  He wheeled about hastily and turned his stare into the air, like a sailor with a search-light.

A stout gentleman, with pompous and philanthropic whiskers, went stolidly by, the broad of his back sneering at the girl.

A belated man in business clothes, and in haste to catch a car, bounced against her shoulder.  “Hi, there, Mary, I beg your pardon!  Brace up, old girl.”  He grasped her arm to steady her, and then was away running down the middle of the street.

The girl walked on out of the realm of restaurants and saloons.  She passed more glittering avenues and went into darker blocks than those where the crowd travelled.

A young man in light overcoat and derby hat received a glance shot keenly from the eyes of the girl.  He stopped and looked at her, thrusting his hands in his pockets and making a mocking smile curl his lips.  “Come, now, old lady,” he said, “you don’t mean to tell me that you sized me up for a farmer?”

A laboring man marched along with bundles under his arms.  To her remarks, he replied:  “It’s a fine evenin’, ain’t it?”