s splendidly meretricious
Orientalism. And I knew Auriccio's,--not a disreputable place at all,
perhaps; but free-and-easy, and distinctly Bohemian. I wished that this
little girl, so arrogantly and ignorantly disdainful (as Alice would
have been under the same circumstances) of such European conventions as
the chaperon, so fresh, so young, so full of allurement, so under the
influence of this smooth, dark, and passionate wooer with the vibrant
voice, could be otherwise accompanied on this night of pleasure than by
himself alone.

"It's none of your business," said the voice of that cold-hearted and
slothful spirit which keeps us in our groove, "and you couldn't do
anything, anyhow. Besides, he's abjectly in love with her: would there
be any danger if it were you and your Alice?"

"I'm not at all sure about him or his abjectness," replied my uneasy
conscience. "He knows better than to do this."

"What do you know of either of them?" answered this same Spirit of
Routine. "What signify a few sentences casually overheard? She may be
something quite different; there are strange things in Chicago."

"I'll wager anything," said I hotly, "that she's a good American girl of
the sort I live among and was brought up with! And she may be in
danger."

"If she's that sort of girl," said the Voice, "you may rely upon her to
take care of herself."

"That's pretty nearly true," I admitted.

"Besides," said the Voice illogically, "such things happen every night
in such a city. It's a part of the great tragedy. Don't be Quixotic!"

Here was where the Voice lost its case: for my conscience was stirred
afresh; and I went back to the convention-hall carrying on a joint
debate with myself. Once in the hall, however, I was conscripted into a
war which was raging all through our delegation over the succession in
our membership in the National Committee. I thought no more of the idyl
of the art-gallery until the adjournment for the night.

CHAPTER II.

Still Introductory.

The great throng from the hall surged along the streets in an Amazonian
network of streams, gathering in boiling lakes in the great hotels,
dribbling off into the boarding-house districts in the suburbs, seeping
down into the slimy fens of vice. Again I found myself out of touch with
it all. I gave my companions the slip, and started for my hotel.

All at once it occurred to me that I had not dined, and with the thought
came the remembrance of my pair o