laced between them, and, after a
few more preliminaries, the Candy Wagon, Candy Man and all, were removed
from the scene of action, leaving the Y.M.C.A. corner to the rain and
the fog, the gleaming lights, and the ceaseless clang of the trolley
cars.
CHAPTER TWO
_In which the Candy Man walks abroad in citizen's clothes, and is
mistaken for a person of wealth and social importance._
The Candy Man strolled along a park path. The October day was crisp, the
sky the bluest blue, the sunny landscape glowing with autumn's fairest
colours. It was a Sunday morning not many days after the events of the
first chapter, and back in the city the church bells were ringing for
eleven o'clock service.
In citizen's clothes, and well-fitting ones at that, the Candy Man was
a presentable young fellow. If his face seemed at first glance a trifle
stern, this sternness was offset by the light in his eyes; a steady,
purposeful glow, through which played at the smallest excuse a humorous
twinkle.
After the ceaseless stir of the Y.M.C.A. corner, the stillness of the
park was most grateful. At this hour on Sunday, if he avoided the golf
grounds, it was to all intents his own. His objective point was a rustic
arbour hung with rose vines and clematis, where was to be had a view of
the river as it made an abrupt turn around the opposite hills. Here he
might read, or gaze and dream, as it pleased him, reasonably secure from
interruption once he had possession.
The Candy Man breathed deeply, and smiled to himself. It was a day to
inspire confident dreams, for the joy of fulfilment was over the land.
Was it the sudden fear that some other dreamer might be before him, or
a subconscious prevision of what actually awaited him, that caused him
to quicken his steps as he neared the arbour? However it may have been,
as he took at a bound the three steps which led up to it, he came with
startling suddenness upon Miss Bentley entering from the other side,
her arms full of flowers. Their eyes met in a flash of recognition
which there was no time to control. She bowed, not ungraciously, yet
distantly, and with a faint puzzled frown on her brow, and he, as he
lifted his hat, spoke her name, which, as he was not supposed to know
it, he had no business to do; then they both laughed at the way in which
they had bounced in at the same moment from opposite directions.
With some remark about the delightful day, the Candy Man, as a gentleman
shou
|