Once since then she had passed his corner on her way up the street.  That was all until to-night.  It seemed probable that she lived in the neighbourhood.  Perhaps the Reporter would know.

Just here the recollection that he was a Candy Man brought him up short.  His bright dreams began to fade.  The Girl of All Others should of course be able to recognise true worth, even in a Candy Wagon, but such is the power of convention he was forced to own to himself it was more than possible she might not.  Or if she did, her friends——­

But these disheartening reflections were curtailed by the sudden appearance of a stout, grey horse under the conduct of a small boy.  The shafts were lowered, the grey horse placed between them, and, after a few more preliminaries, the Candy Wagon, Candy Man and all, were removed from the scene of action, leaving the Y.M.C.A. corner to the rain and the fog, the gleaming lights, and the ceaseless clang of the trolley cars.

CHAPTER TWO

In which the Candy Man walks abroad in citizen’s clothes, and is mistaken for a person of wealth and social importance.

The Candy Man strolled along a park path.  The October day was crisp, the sky the bluest blue, the sunny landscape glowing with autumn’s fairest colours.  It was a Sunday morning not many days after the events of the first chapter, and back in the city the church bells were ringing for eleven o’clock service.

In citizen’s clothes, and well-fitting ones at that, the Candy Man was a presentable young fellow.  If his face seemed at first glance a trifle stern, this sternness was offset by the light in his eyes; a steady, purposeful glow, through which played at the smallest excuse a humorous twinkle.

After the ceaseless stir of the Y.M.C.A. corner, the stillness of the park was most grateful.  At this hour on Sunday, if he avoided the golf grounds, it was to all intents his own.  His objective point was a rustic arbour hung with rose vines and clematis, where was to be had a view of the river as it made an abrupt turn around the opposite hills.  Here he might read, or gaze and dream, as it pleased him, reasonably secure from interruption once he had possession.

The Candy Man breathed deeply, and smiled to himself.  It was a day to inspire confident dreams, for the joy of fulfilment was over the land.  Was it the sudden fear that some other dreamer might be before him, or a subconscious prevision of what actually awaited him, that caused him to quicken his steps as he neared the arbour?  However it may have been, as he took at a bound the three steps which led up to it, he came with startling suddenness upon Miss Bentley entering from the other side, her arms full of flowers.  Their eyes met in a flash of recognition which there was no time to control.  She bowed, not ungraciously, yet distantly, and with a faint puzzled frown on her brow, and he, as he lifted his hat, spoke her name, which, as he was not supposed to know it, he had no business to do; then they both laughed at the way in which they had bounced in at the same moment from opposite directions.