But that was not the oddest part of it.  In that street stood talking a girl in gorgeous Spanish dress and a man in Moorish costume.  The warm reds and greens and russets of their garments made an unbelievable patch of colour in the grey March day.  And this in New York!

A friendly truck driver, feeding his horses, saw my bewilderment, and laughed.

[Illustration:  A GREENWICH STUDIO.  Choosing models.]

“That’s Macdougal’s Alley,” he volunteered.

That meant nothing to me then.

“What is it?” I demanded, devoured by curiosity; “the stage door of a theatre,—­or what?”

He laughed again.

“It is just Macdougal’s Alley!” he repeated, as though that explained everything.

So it did, when I came to find out about it.

The Alley and Washington Mews are probably the most famous artist quarters in the city, and some of our biggest painters and sculptors once had studios in one or the other,—­those, that is, that haven’t them still.  Of course the picturesquely attired individuals I had caught sight of were models—­taking the air, or snatching a moment for flirtation.  Naturally they would not have appeared in costume in any other street in New York, but this, you see, was Macdougal Alley, and as my friend, the truck driver, seemed to think, that explains everything!

As for the Mews, they are fixing it up in great shape; and as for those Eighth-Street studios, they are too beautiful for words.  You look out on Italian gardens, and you know that you are nowhere near New York, with its prose and drudgery.  If for a moment it seems all a bit too perfect for the haphazard, inspirational loveliness of the Village, you will surely have an arresting instinct which will tell you that it is just consummating a Village dream; it is just making what every Villager lives to make come true:  perfect artistic beauty.

As we have seen, dancing is a real passion in the Village.  So we can scarcely leave it without touching on the “Village dances” which have been so striking a feature of recent times and have proved so useful and so fruitful to the tired Sunday-supplement newspaperman.  There are various sorts, from the regular pageants staged by the Liberal Club and the Kit Kat, to those of more modest pretensions given by individual Villagers or groups of Villagers.

The Quatres Arts balls of Paris doubtless formed the basis for these affairs; indeed, a description given me years ago by William Dodge, the artist, might almost serve as the story of one of these Village balls today.  And Doris, who, I believe, appeared on one occasion as “Aphrodite,”—­in appropriate “costume”—­recalls the celebrated model Sara Brown who electrified Paris by her impersonation of “Cleopatra” at a "Quatz ’Arts" gathering,—­somewhat similarly arrayed,—­or should we say decorated?