"On my evenings off I had sometimes stopped to gaze at this, to me, strangely moving sight. I saw in it then what I could not have seen a few months before; but not as much as I can see now. Then it excited me with the sense of a possible adventure. Strange, but I never went there when I was happy, only when I was uncommonly depressed. "On a chilly Sunday evening in October I was waiting on this corner to take a car to the furnished room of a factory girl, named Alice, whom I knew was out of town. As I was out of a job and did not want to go home, I had availed myself of her place for a few days. As I was waiting on this corner, I saw a face in the crowd that attracted me. It was, as I afterward learned, the face of a club man, who had, on this Sunday evening, drifted with the crowd and landed at this spot. He, too, had stopped and gazed around him, idly. Several times he started as if to move on, but he apparently thought this place as good as any other, and so remained. He seemed not to know what to do, to be tired of himself. His face was quite the ordinary American type, clean-cut features, rather thin and cold, with honest grey eyes, but, in his case, a mouth rather sensuous and a general air of curiosity and life which interested me. "I was sufficiently interested to allow several cars to pass by, while I watched him. I noticed by the way he looked at the women who passed that he was familiar with their kind. Several gay girls tried to attract his attention, but he turned away, bored. Finally I began to walk away, and then for the first time his face lighted up with interest. I was apparently something new. I wore a straw hat, and a thin coat buttoned tightly about my chest. My thin little face was almost ghastly with pallor, and it made a strange contrast with my full red lips, which were almost scarlet, and my big glowing black eyes. He probably saw that I was poor, dressed as I was at that season. Why is it that for many rich men a working girl half fed and badly dressed is so much more attractive than a fine woman of the town or a nice lady? "As I passed him, he said, 'Good evening,' in a low and timid tone, as if he thought I surely would not answer. I think it surprised him when I looked him full in the face and replied, 'Good evening!' He still hesitated, until he saw in my face what I knew to be almost an appealing look. I knew that in the depths of my eyes a smile was lurking, and I wanted to bring it forth! A moment later, I smiled indeed, when he stepped forward, lifted his hat, and asked with assurance: 'May I walk with you? Are you going anywhere?' "'Yes, I am going somewhere,' I said, smiling. 'To a meeting place in Adams Street to hear a lecture.' "'Oh, I say, girlie,' he cried, 'You're jollying. That must be a very dull thing for you, a lecture.'