“Well, you’re Mary, all right,” laughed Joyce.  “That speech certainly proves it.  Don’t worry, I’ll get you home as soon as possible.”

“Telephones are wonderful things,” confided Mary to the saleswoman.  “They are as good as genii in a bottle for getting you out of trouble.  I should think the man who invented them would feel so much like a wizard, that he’d be sort of afraid of himself.”

The woman answered pleasantly, and would, gladly have continued the conversation, but was called away just then to a customer.  Hidden from view of the street by a large dummy lady in a sealskin coat and fur-trimmed skirt, Mary peeped out from behind it at the panorama rolling past the window.  At first she was intensely interested in the endless stream of strange faces, but when an hour had slipped by and still they came, always strange, always different, a sense of littleness and loneliness seized her, that amounted almost to panic.  She longed to get away from this great myriad-footed monster of a city, back to something small and familiar and quiet; to neighbourly greetings and friendly faces.  The loneliness caused by the strange crowds depressed her.  It was like a dull ache.

The moments dragged on.  She had no way to judge how long she waited, but the hour seemed at least two.  Then suddenly, through the mass of people came a well-known figure with a firm, athletic tread.  A man, who even in this crowd of well-dressed cosmopolitans attracted a second look.

“Oh, it’s Phil!” she exclaimed aloud, her face brightening as if the sun had suddenly burst out on a cloudy day.  She wondered if she dared do such a thing as to tap on the window to attract his attention.  She would not have hesitated in Plainsville or Phoenix, but here everything was so different.  Somebody else might look and Phil never turn his head.

While she waited, half-rising from her chair, he stopped, looked up at the sign, and then came directly towards the door.  Wondering at the strange coincidence that should bring him into the one shop in all New York in which she happened to be sitting, she started up, thinking to surprise him.  Then the surprise was hers, for she saw that he was in search of her.  With a word to the obsequious salesman who met him, he came directly towards her hiding-place behind the dummy in sealskin.  His face lighted with a merry smile that was good to see as he crossed over to her with outstretched hand, saying laughingly: 

“The lost is found!  Well, young lady, this is a pretty performance!  What do you mean by shocking your fond relatives and friends almost into catalepsy?  I happened to drop in at the studio just as Joyce got your message, and she and Betty were at their wits’ end to account for your disappearance.”

“Oh, I’m so glad to see you,” answered Mary.  “You can’t imagine!  I’m even as glad as I was that time you happened along when the Indian chased me.”  She ignored his question as entirely as if he had not asked it.