The great avenue behind them was no more than a level stream of yellow light, and the distant merry bells might have been boats floating down it.

Grim loneliness hung over the uncouth shapes in the street which was being repaired.
"Billie," said the girl suddenly, "what makes you so mean to me ?" A peaceful citizen emerged from behind a pile of _debris_, but he might not have been a peaceful citizen, so the girl clung to Hawker.
"Why, I'm not mean to you, am I ?" "Yes," she answered.

As they stood on the steps of the flat of innumerable fire-escapes she slowly turned and looked up at him.

Her face was of a strange pallour in this darkness, and her eyes were as when the moon shines in a lake of the hills.
He returned her glance.

"Florinda!" he cried, as if enlightened, and gulping suddenly at something in his throat.