Page:Dangerous Business (1927).pdf/62



New York! It was calm and sunny in New York, not gray and clouded with blowing snow. It was crisp, cheery, not cold.

The sun, striking the topmost windows on the west walls of the Avenue, gleamed back in sharp slants to the east and glinted again upon panes which dispatched, deeper downward, shafts of the diminished light. At street intersections, the sun lay yellow and lent shadows to escort cars and people over the crossings.

In the sheer sides of the buildings, in the gleaming windows, in the pinnacles of the roofs, in the resound underfoot, in the snatches of talk, in the click of canes and women's heels, in soft scents, colors, smart shoulders and hats, in the glance of eyes, in the air itself, because it was New York, was excitation. To marry, marry Lida Haige, was become much more a matter of mere procedure than could have been conceivable in Chicago.

Here, people enterprised in intimate experience easily, lightly, expertly. In Chicago, the idea had done more violence; more crudely it had lain on the conscience. Chicago in comparison seemed, this morning, not only grayer and stormier but duller and sterner. Perhaps it was merely because his father was there.

"Do it!" bid New York. "Do it without bothering. It'll be an experience."

Jay walked on, up Park Avenue, his thousand dollars