The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1910-11-11

vZHQIIIyNIy Madison Square was be-
uNXCJI[CMLH ginning to be sentient
Of dawn. Where the
slender tip of the
Metropolitan tower lost
itself In air, seven hundred feet above the
pavement, was a wide fringe Of peacock
blue. And far down, where East Twenty
fourth Street opened panel of sky into the
heart Of the East Side, livid, purplish
green brooded like some malignant miasma
over swamp.
Everything was very beautiful, or at
least yer, strange and interesting, and Miss
Lucia Van Roche Allston was glad that she
had come to see it. Her seeing it was some
thing Of an adventure in itself; and the
facts that she hadariscn before three clock,
stolen away from home without saying
"Boo!" to anybody, and ridden down from
Central Park West on the Sixth Avenue
Elevated, proclaimed her an adventure
some and unusual member of that iota of
society known as Society. Originality,
which may be considered sort Of perverse-
ness, had been diligently fostered in her;
for nearly half of her twenty-four years she
had been urged, by interested persons and
publications, to believe that she was as
original as she was beautiful. She was be-
ginning to feel that the well Increased grooves
Of Society were too straight and narrow for
her, and, although she had not carried her
analysis Of her mental state to this extreme,
she was quite prepared to do something
more than usually perverse.
She was in the act Of lightly meditating
these matters, shivering, and deciding to 60
homo, when her attention was attracted by
the remarkable actions of one of the monde
scripts. In the course Of short, arm
threshing promenade, evidently taken for
thepurpose Of counteracting the chill of the
April morning, he had developed a violent
fit Of coughing. He gasped, choked, bent
double, tottered on his heels. In a final
paroxysm he seemed to suffer a sort of
melting process that left him, in a gray
heap, upon the sidewalk.
Miss Allston had never before seen any,
thing quite 50 physically distressing, and it
startled her so that the ostrich plumes on
her wide, black hat trembled as If in the
presence of a breeze. Her cheeks flushed
until they were even more scarlet than those
of the other women abroad at that hour.
She sat with widencd eyes, gripping her
Egyptian-bronzc purse upon her caracul
lap, and wondering what would happen.
During the ten or fifteen minutes while a
small crowd collected, a policeman APP
peared, and an ambulance came changing
up to the sidewalk, she did not move. But
as a Whitehead surgeon alighted from the
vehicle, she arose and went quickly over to
the little group Of down-looking men and
women.
Pushing her way through one rim of the
small circle, she looked down upon the gray
heap at its center. The colors in the sick
mans cheeks, eyeballs, and mouth shot
sensations OF horror from her hair to the
soles Of her feet. Out of the fullness of her
unusual emotion, she spoke to the surgeon:
"Oh, can't anything be done for him?
How terrible! Send him to the best hospital
at once, please! Horrible! l will pay
whatever is necessary. How frightful!"
The surgeon, who had propped up the
mans head and was calmly observing him,
turned a pair Of chilly blue eyes into Miss
Allston's. Except for the blue of these
eyes, the reddish tinge of little pointed
beard, and the Light red Of his lips, his keen,
clean face might have been cut from block
Of white stone.
"Run along, Theresa" he said, evidently
misgaging her position on the social scale.
"Somc bromo seltzer and few hours sleep
for yours"
Miss Allston tried to draw herself up to
her full height, which was not inconsider-
able, and crush him with steely "Sir!''
But the superior, tolerant look in his eyes
reduced her efforts to spasmodic jerk and
q sibilant. She realized suddenly that the
ambulance man, in spite Of the fact that he
wore a uniform, was different, in many
ways, from all the buffers and fOotmen Of
her acquaintance.
IL am not accustomed to being ad.
dressed in that manner!" she said. becom.
ing increasingly conscious that she wa:
ehii!y and that the bystanders were staring
at her. II am Miss Van Roche Allston
nave offered to pay for treatment for Thu
man, and expect an answer. Can moth
ing be done for himp"
Inc surgeon. reforming his judgment b,
short stare, dismissed Hs superiority ant
most Of his tolerance.
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