"
She was a new girl, of whom nobody had heard, and Peter had been
thrilled and impatient. Her "singing stunt" was to be heard at ten
o'clock, and Peter had dined at his club, meaning to be early in his
seat at the theatre. But a man he knew, sitting at a table near, was a
budding journalist, an earnest amateur photographer. He began passing
samples of his skill to Peter Rolls, calling out rather loudly the
names of ladies snapshotted. Among them was Winifred Cheylesmore, whom
he had interviewed. She was no more like Winifred Child than Marie
Tempest is like Ethel Barrymore. Consequently Peter gave his ticket
away and sat longer over his dinner than he had meant.
If he had started out even five minutes earlier he would have missed
Jim Logan and the adventure in the shut-up house. He would not have
known that there was hope--indeed, almost a certainty--of finding the
lost dryad in one of New York's great department stores.
He was excited, and would have liked to spend half the night walking
off his superfluous energy in the streets or the park where that lying
beast said he had made Miss Child's acquaintance. Peter would have
felt that he was marching to meet the dawn and that the day he longed
for would come to him sooner if he walked toward the horizon.
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