Fifth Avenue presented its customary animated and brilliant picture of
refined cosmopolitan life. The sidewalks were crowded to the curb with
stylishly dressed promenaders, the roadway blocked with smart
automobiles and handsome equipages. The all New York of fashion and
wealth was taking its afternoon sunning.
For the foreigner making a study of our national manners, the Avenue's
five-o'clock parade any fine afternoon during the season presents a
scene as typically American as he may expect to find. Here in this one
narrow, splendid thoroughfare, stretching in a noble line, as the crow
flies, from Twenty-third Street away up to the Nineties, is concentrated
the fabulous, incalculable wealth of the United States. Here, side by
side, dwell the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, the Vanderbilts, the
Astors, the Goulds, the Harrimans, the Morgans, the Whitneys, and other
giants of finance, whose fortunes aggregate thousands of millions of
dollars! Lined on either side of the street with the marble palaces of
its multi-millionaires, its roadway jammed with carriages and
automobiles kept in order by picturesque mounted police, its sidewalks
thronged with pretty, stylish girls, and men and women famous in art,
music, politics, science and literature--New York's most exclusive
thoroughfare is perhaps the one place where the American plutocracy is
on exhibition in all its aggressive opulence. The show street of New
York, it is not laid with rails for electric cars like other
thoroughfares of the metropolis. Wagons and trucks not having special
business there are forbidden to traverse it. The poor man understands
that it is the exclusive domain of the very rich, that he has no place
there, and that if he appears on its sacred pavements he is apt to be
looked upon as an audacious intruder.
Armitage rested from his work and looked around him, dazed by the bustle
and noise. The gay, busy city was such a contrast with the quiet,
peaceful life he had led for the past few months that the sudden change
was startling. It had all the attraction of novelty. The afternoon
parade was at its height, and he was interested watching the
promenaders. Never had he seen so many pretty girls. There were styles
of beauty to suit every taste--blondes and brunettes. Tall, graceful,
aristocratic girls; short, plump, vivacious girls. Some had the grace of
stately lilies, others the charm and fragrance of the full-blown rose.
Each rivaled the other in chic of costume, all were merry and full of
the exuberance of youth. They passed in twos and threes and as Armitage
watched them, he wondered where his girl was--the one girl in the world!
He knew that she was in New York, and he also knew where her home was on
Fifth Avenue. Perhaps if he stayed there long enough, he would see her
go by.
He had not heard from Grace since they landed in Boston. He reviewed in
his mind all that had occurred since the wreck of the _Atlanta_, that
ever-memorable night when, swimming for his life in the raging seas, he
had felt her limp body lying heavily on his left arm. Then came their
long sojourn together on Hope Island, a blissful dream rudely
interrupted by the untimely arrival of the _Saucy Polly_. Then their
return to America. Even on the voyage home they were no longer the same
to each other. In her new clothes, borrowed from the stewardess, she
looked quite different. He thought he detected more reserve in her
manner toward him. Then, when they arrived in Boston, her father was
waiting for her, and they left at once for New York--on a special train.
He couldn't follow. He had no money and refused to accept any from Mr.
Harmon. He felt amply rewarded for all he had done when Grace smiled
kindly at him as she shook hands and said good-by.
When they had gone he tried to find work. For some days he was
unsuccessful. Times were hard. Instead of employing new men, old hands
were everywhere being discharged by the hundreds. At first he thought of
taking to his old occupation, the sea, but he thought better of it. He
had had enough of seafaring to last him some time. Then, desperate, he
tried to get anything. Men with nerve were needed in the iron
construction work of a lofty sky-scraper. He didn't know much about the
business, but he did not mind the danger, and he was soon high in the
air, astride a swinging iron beam, riveting bolts at a dizzy height and
with such frail support that the people in the street below turned pale
for fear he would fall. What did he care if a girder fell and he was
dashed to pieces below? He laughed at danger, and performed feats that
made his fellow workmen gasp. This earned him good pay, and soon he had
saved enough to come to New York.
Why had he come to New York? Why had he given up good wages to come here
without the certainty of finding work? Only one thing had attracted him
here--the same reason that attracts the moth to the flame. He knew it
was hopeless, but he could not resist the temptation of coming to the
same city where she was, breathing the same air she breathed and
secretly, at night, coming up to Fifth Avenue and standing for hours,
watching her windows until he was ordered to move on by a suspicious
policeman. Luckily he had found employment--the same kind of work that
he had done successfully in Boston. A sky-scraper was being erected on
the corner of Fifth Avenue and Forty-second Street, and he was sent to
rivet the iron beams. That was how he came to be there that sunny
afternoon.
Curiously, he eyed the fashionably dressed promenaders as they passed
by, chatting and laughing in polite conversation. There was no hostility
in his attitude as he watched them. That feeling had died away. These
men and women with their fine clothes and polished manners appeared to
him to-day in a different light. There was a time when he would have
cursed them as they haughtily brushed past him, but now the old
animosity had died away. The class hatred which he had nourished so long
in his heart had undergone a change. These were her people, perhaps they
were her friends. Wistfully, he looked after them, wishing he could
summon up courage to boldly approach some one and ask how Grace was.
Eagerly he scanned the brilliant throng, hoping each instant to catch
sight of her in the crowd, but he watched in vain. The beloved figure he
would have recognized a mile away did not appear.
Disappointed, he turned once more to his task. It was already half-past
four. In thirty minutes more the whistle would blow. The men would quit
work and he would trudge over to the cheaper East Side, where he lived.
He had picked up his sledge-hammer and was about to resume work when he
happened to look up the Avenue. There she was at last, close at hand,
coming toward him. Involuntarily, he stepped back, and the heavy hammer
fell from his nerveless grasp.
Grace went by, dainty and _chic_, the cynosure of every eye on the
Avenue. Men turned after her as she passed. Women stopped and pointed.
But, unconscious of, or indifferent to, the admiration she excited, Miss
Harmon continued on her way home.
Armitage gazed after her, as if petrified. His first impulse was to cry
out, to run after her, to attract her attention. He stumbled forward and
then stopped. What right had he to accost her? She might resent it as an
unwarrantable impertinence. It would humiliate and embarrass her to be
addressed amid that fashionable throng by a common workman. It was
enough that he had seen her--from a distance. That was all the happiness
he could reasonably expect. By the time he had reasoned with himself,
Grace was out of sight.
That evening when Armitage reached his lodgings he found awaiting him a
letter bearing the Boston postmark. Opening it, he saw it contained
another letter addressed to him and forwarded in care of the Boston
office of the owners of the _Saucy Polly_. Tearing open the envelope, he
read as follows:
"-- FIFTH AVENUE.
"DEAR MR. ARMITAGE: If you happen to be in New York, I should be
glad if you could find it convenient to call at the above address.
"Yours faithfully,
"JOHN HARMON."