Nora sprang into the waiting taxi with a little laugh of triumph and drew her skirts on one side to make room for her escort.

They drove slowly off along the hot and crowded street, with its long-drawn-out tangle of polyglot shops, foreign-looking restaurants and delicatessen establishments.

Every one who was not feverishly busy was seated either at the open windows of the second or third floor, or out on the pavement below.

The city seemed to be exuding the soaked-in heat of the long summer's day.

The women who floated by were dressed in the lightest of muslins; even the plainest of them gained a new charm in their airy and butterfly-looking costumes.