Page:Firecrackers a realistic novel.pdf/46

 prevented her from paying attention to marks of identification for which she could summon up no immediate interest. The child wracked her brains for a potential clue. It would have proved amusing, had Campaspe's impatience given her leave to enjoy such an emotion, to observe the miniature knit of the parthenic brow, to watch the little girl bury her frail face fecklessly in her hands with their tapering fingers. Basil, as usual, was silent. In any case he could be of no assistance. While these desperate sacrifices were being offered on the altar of Mnemosyne, the automobile rested dormant before the door of the Sixty-eighth Street house.

I know! Consuelo cried at last, as the light of a new intelligence shone in her eyes. There were stuffed doves in the window.

It seemed a remote beacon, but as it was unique, Campaspe ordered Ambrose to follow the trail. Now, while the chauffeur drove the car forward, every nose was snubbed against a pane, every eye sought for the vision of a stuffed dove. Consuelo was vague in regard to the number of blocks to be traversed on Madison Avenue, but she issued general directions which proved to be the reverse of helpful. When, after they had been held up at nearly every crossing by a policeman regulating traffic, they attained Thirty-sixth Street without having encountered a single stuffed dove, the quest appeared to be vain. Campaspe, however, was not to be so easily discouraged. Were it necessary she was