The Girl and the Bill

The roar of State Street filled the ears of Robert Orme not unpleasantly. He liked Chicago, felt towards the Western city something more than the tolerant, patronizing interest which so often characterizes the Eastern man. To him it was the hub of genuine Americanism--young, aggressive, perhaps a bit too cocksure, but ever bounding along with eyes toward the future. Here was the city of great beginnings, the city of experiment--experiment with life; hence its incompleteness--an incompleteness not dissimilar to that of life itself. Chicago lived; it was the pulse of the great Middle West.

Orme watched the procession with clear eyes. He had been strolling southward from the Masonic Temple, into the shopping district. The clangor, the smoke and dust, the hurrying crowds, all worked into his mood. The expectation of adventure was far from him. Nor was he a man who sought impressions for amusement; whatever came to him he weighed, and accepted or rejected according as it was valueless or useful. Wholesome he was; anyone might infer that from his face. Doubtless, his fault lay in his overemphasis on the purely practical; but that, after all, was a lawyer's fault, and it was counterbalanced by a sweet kindliness toward all the world--a loveableness which made for him a friend of every chance acquaintance.

It was well along in the afternoon, and shoppers were hurrying homeward. Orme noted the fresh beauty of the women and girls--Chicago has reason to be proud of her daughters--and his heart beat a little faster. Not that he was a man to be caught by every pretty stranger; but scarcely recognized by himself, there was a hidden spring of romance in his practical nature. Heart-free, he never met a woman without wondering whether she was the one. He had never found her; he did not know that he was looking for her; yet always there was the unconscious question.

A distant whistle, the clanging of gongs, the rapid beat of galloping hoofs--fire-engines were racing down the street. Cars stopped, vehicles of all kinds crowded in toward the curbs.

Orme paused and watched the fire horses go thundering by, their smoking chariots swaying behind them and dropping long trails of sparks. Small boys were running, men and women were stopping to gaze after the passing engines, but Orme's attention was taken by something that was happening near by, and as the gongs and the hoof-beats grew fainter he looked with interest to the street beside him.

He had got as far as the corner of Madison Street. The scramble to get out of the way of the engines had here resulted in a traffic-jam. Two policemen were moving about, shouting orders for the disentanglement of the street-cars and vehicles which seemed to be inextricably wedged together.

A burly Irish teamster was bellowing at his horse. The hind wheel of a smart barouche was caught in the fore wheel of a delivery wagon, and the driver of the delivery wagon was expressing his opinion of the situation in terms which seemed to embarrass the elderly gentleman who sat in the barouche. Orme's eye traveled through the outer edge of the disturbance, and sought its center.

There in the midst of the tangle was a big black touring-car. Its one occupant was a girl--and such a girl! Her fawn-colored cloak was thrown open; her face was unveiled. Orme was thrilled when he caught the glory of her face--the clear skin, browned by outdoor living; the demure but regular features; the eyes that seemed to transmute and reflect softly all impressions from without. Orme had never seen anyone like her--so nobly unconscious of self, so appealing and yet so calm.