There was the great jewel-store
where Edith had taken him so often to consult
his taste whenever a friend of hers was to be
married. It was there that they had had an
amicable quarrel over that bronze statue of
Faust which she had found beautiful, while he,
with a rudeness which seemed now quite
incomprehensible, had insisted that it was not.
And when he had failed to convince her, she had
given him her hand in token of reconciliation--
and Edith had a wonderful way of giving her
hand, which made any one feel that it was a
peculiar privilege to press it--and they had
walked out arm in arm into the animated, gas-
lighted streets, with a delicious sense of
snugness and security, being all the more closely
united for their quarrel. Here, farther up the
avenue, they had once been to a party, and he
had danced for the first time in his life with
Edith. Here was Delmonico's, where they had
had such fascinating luncheons together; where
she had got a stain on her dress, and he had
been forced to observe that her dress was then
not really a part of herself, since it was a thing
that could not be stained. Her dress had
always seemed to him as something absolute and
final, exalted above criticism, incapable of
improvement.
As I have said, Halfdan walked briskly up the
avenue, and it was something after eleven when
he reached the house which he sought. The
great cloud-bank in the north had then begun
to expand and stretched its long misty arms
eastward and westward over the heavens.
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