A sudden resolve seized upon him. As soon as dinner was over he excused himself to Mrs. Gault and Letitia, hurried on his overcoat, and slipped away.
It had been raining all day--the warm, abundant rain of late December. The breath of the night was softly damp, and fragrant with scents from the saturated gardens. The avenue was deserted and noiseless, save for the even rustle of the falling flood, which made the asphalt shine like ice, into which the lamps' reflections stabbed in long, broken poniards. Nobody was abroad. It was Christmas eve. There were wreaths in the lighted windows, and sounds of singing now and then fell upon Gault's ear.
He boarded the car which crossed the avenue farther down, and sat in the glare of its lamps, his face fallen into lines of spiritless apathy. When it reached its terminus he alighted.
There were life and movement enough here. People were jostling on the sloppy sidewalks; umbrellas struck against umbrellas, sometimes, in an elbow-brushing contact, caught together, and were dragged apart with a spattering of moisture over laughing faces. The rain dripped monotonously down on them, between them, across the glare of windows, over the rheumy halo of lamps, off the cope of cornices and the angles of gutters. The even roar of Market Street was broken into by the deep voices of hilarious men and the shrill notes of women. Raucous laughter was interrupted by the sudden petulant wail of tired children. Over all the light of show-windows poured in a steady glare, unsoftened by the veil of rain. It was reflected from innumerable wet surfaces, uncovered faces that were moist, draperies beaded with drops, bits of sidewalk, pools in little hollows, and the black and gleaming bosses of hundreds of umbrellas.
Gault, unheeded and unheeding, hurried through the press, crossed Market Street, and plunged into the region beyond. There were crowds here too, and lights and laughter, brilliant windows that sent gushes of raw radiance across the sidewalks, and Christmas shoppers as busy as those on the other side of the city's great dividing artery. Even in the old street, among the brooding palaces, there was a faint show of life. In one there were lights in the second-story windows. Against the ground-glass panels in the massive front door of another the circular forms of two wreaths were outlined. The iron gate of its bulky neighbor grated grudgingly to give egress to an expressman carrying parcels.