Page:MacGrath--The luck of the Irish.djvu/288

 long, hot summer day. The pavements were throwing off the heat they had absorbed; and what little breeze came in through the open windows was tainted by the smell of water and dust and asphalt, and burdened with the thousand changeable, indescribable sounds of mechanisms, the voices of a great city.

From somewhere came the whining, discordant music of a hand-organ; and the young woman knew that near it happy, barelegged children were dancing. Children! There are some words which, when called into being, seem instantly to clothe themselves with bristling, stabbing points. The young woman winced. She who loved children, who was peculiarly familiar with the bewildering facets of their budding characters, she had forgotten them. What a horror she was to herself!

She flung up her head, slid from the trunk, snatched her hat from the bed, and put it on without so much as a glance into the mirror, which, in a young and comely woman, registers the sign that she is under some great emotional strain. She had made her calculations in cold blood; there was not even the shadow of love in her heart. Ah, if only love had swayed her, human and beautiful love, which gives everything and asks for nothing!

She crossed over to the bureau drawers, which were all out, and once again looked through them. Then she sought one of the windows and leaned against the casement. Each time she heard the