Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/100

 the bridge, It began again. Northward the sun was gleaming on white sails and sparkling on the water, but overhead a purple-gray cloud was moving up from the south, and from it in the still air the rain plashed straight down in big lazy drops. Gordon stopped and slipped on a rubber coat, and then, the shower increasing to a very respectable downpour meanwhile, slid into the busy traffic on the Manhattan side and worked cautiously over slippery pavements toward Fifth Avenue. The cloud had grown and the city was enveloped in a false twilight of falling raindrops and dim reflections. The afternoon was mild and soft, hinting at May, scarcely a week distant, and the shower, hissing against the stones and flooding the gutters, drew forth a pleasantly earthy smell. Above the roofs the white steam writhed and floated in billowing festoons. Here and there in some basement shop a light appeared, splashing the gloom with lemon-yellow radiance. As he turned into the Avenue his gaze, wandering idly under a dripping awning on the corner, caught sight of a figure there. The big wheels hissed on the wet asphalt as the car came to a stop within its length. Gordon leaped out and hurried back.