The cigar-stand girl turned to attend to an impatient customer, and the Girl Friend, walking with the firm and decisive steps which indicate character, made for the swing-door leading to the street.  And as she went, the paralysis which had pipped Archie released its hold.  Still ignoring the forty-five cents which the boy continued to proffer, he leaped in her wake like a panther and came upon her just as she was stepping into a car.  The car was full, but not too full for Archie.  He dropped his five cents into the box and reached for a vacant strap.  He looked down upon the flowered hat.  There she was.  And there he was.  Archie rested his left ear against the forearm of a long, strongly-built young man in a grey suit who had followed him into the car and was sharing his strap, and pondered.

CHAPTER XV

SUMMER STORMS

Of course, in a way, the thing was simple.  The wheeze was, in a sense, straightforward and uncomplicated.  What he wanted to do was to point out to the injured girl all that hung on her.  He wished to touch her heart, to plead with her, to desire her to restate her war-aims, and to persuade her—­before three o’clock when that stricken gentleman would be stepping into the pitcher’s box to loose off the first ball against the Pittsburg Pirates—­to let bygones be bygones and forgive Augustus Biddle.  But the blighted problem was, how the deuce to find the opportunity to start.  He couldn’t yell at the girl in a crowded street-car; and, if he let go of his strap and bent over her, somebody would step on his neck.

The Girl Friend, who for the first five minutes had remained entirely concealed beneath her hat, now sought diversion by looking up and examining the faces of the upper strata of passengers.  Her eye caught Archie’s in a glance of recognition, and he smiled feebly, endeavouring to register bonhomie and good-will.  He was surprised to see a startled expression come into her brown eyes.  Her face turned pink.  At least, it was pink already, but it turned pinker.  The next moment, the car having stopped to pick up more passengers, she jumped off and started to hurry across the street.

Archie was momentarily taken aback.  When embarking on this business he had never intended it to become a blend of otter-hunting and a moving-picture chase.  He followed her off the car with a sense that his grip on the affair was slipping.  Preoccupied with these thoughts, he did not perceive that the long young man who had shared his strap had alighted too.  His eyes were fixed on the vanishing figure of the Girl Friend, who, having buzzed at a smart pace into Sixth Avenue, was now legging it in the direction of the staircase leading to one of the stations of the Elevated Railroad.  Dashing up the stairs after her, he shortly afterwards found himself suspended as before from a strap, gazing upon the now familiar flowers on top of her hat.  From another strap farther down the carriage swayed the long young man in the grey suit.