The effect of the immortal transformation of day into night was singularly elusive. It had come so stealthily that the fleet-footed hours seemed to have tripped one another in the fever of the race, the monotonous grayness of their garments shrouding, as they fluttered past, the form of each sprightly elf. Along Broadway the throng moved hurriedly. At a distance indescribably homogeneous, as it passed the lighted windows of shops it was seen to be composed of individual atoms, and their outlines were relieved against the garish interiors like a panorama of automatic silhouettes. Then, as they neared a crossing, a flood of radiant electricity, revealing minute details of face and figure, the atoms were revivified from automatic into animal existence. With an inhuman disregard of caste and custom, the aberrant shadows of the passers-by met and mingled one into another. A phantasmagoric procession took place upon the sidewalk. The ethereal accompaniment of the physical substance of a Wall Street plutocrat glided sedately after that of a bedizened daughter of the people, whose way, beginning in the glare of the workhouse, was ending in the dusk of the river; a lady of quality, whose very shadow seemed pregnant with the odor of spice and sables, melted before the encroaching presence of a boot-black fresh from the Bowery; a gentleman of fashion gave place to the dull phantom of a woman with burning brows and fingers purple with the stain of many stitches. It was as if each material substance, warm with the lust of the flesh and reeking with a burnt-offering of vanity, was pursued by the inevitable presence of a tragic destiny. At the corner of Seventeenth Street, a girl in a last season's coat left the crowd and paused before a photographer's window. As she passed from shadow into light the play of her limbs was suggested by the close folds of her shabby skirt. She had the light and steadfast gait of one to whom exercise is as essential as food, and more easily attained. A man coming from Union Square turned to look at her as she passed. "That girl is a _danseuse_," he said to his companion, "or she ought to be. She walks to music." "Your induction is false," retorted the other. "She happens to be--" And they passed on. As the girl paused before the lighted window the outlines of head and shoulders were accentuated, while the rest of her body remained in obscurity. Her head was shapely and well poised. Beneath the small toque of black velvet, an aureole of dry brown hair framed her sensitive profile like a setting of old mahogany. Even in the half-light silhouette it could be noticed that eyes, hair, and complexion differed in tone rather than in color. Her sallow skin blended in peculiar harmony with the gray-green of her eyes and the brown of her hair. Her face was long, with irregular features and straight brows. The bones of cheek and chin were rendered sharper by extreme thinness.