The City of Pleasure met with the entire approval of Pauline and Rosie. As soon as they found themselves in the Central Way they began to get enthusiastic. The sun was shining, the flags were flying, the cable-cars were gliding, and thousands and thousands of visitors made gay the City. They had never before seen anything like the Central Way, with its colonnades, and its shops, and its coloured throngs, and its soaring, gleaming, white architecture. “It’s just as good as being abroad, isn’t it?” said Rosie. “Better,” said Pauline. But then they had never been beyond Boulogne. They stopped at shop windows, as much to regard jewellery and knick-knacks, as to observe whether their frocks and chiffons and hats were in that immaculate order which a sunny day and the presence of one’s fellow-creatures demand. It may be mentioned here that their dresses were of dark blue, with blue belts, bunchy knots of white muslin at the throat, white gloves, brown glacé kid boots, and large blue-and-black picture hats. It was plain, but it was perfect, and they knew it was perfect. The consciousness of perfection enabled them to sustain the judicial gaze of other women, and the passing glance of innumerable young men, with a supercilious stare. In truth they were secretly wild with the joy of life, and the attractiveness of the City, and the sensations of their holiday, but they did not show it. Oh, no! They did not show it. They were prim to the most advanced degree, as became them. “I should just love to go on one of those dear little cable-cars!” exclaimed Rosie. “Well, let’s,” Pauline agreed. “Aren’t they delicious?” said Rosie. And only in the girlish hop, skip, and jump, which landed them gracefully on a car, was there a hint of the pent-up vivacity which surged in their veins--a hint that vanished as rapidly as it had showed itself. As Rosie smoothed out her skirt, and as Pauline opened the purse in her gloved hand to give two pence to the conductor, they had the utter demureness of duchesses. The car was open to the sky, with crosswise seats, and, as it sailed rapidly down the Central Way, constantly passing other cars coming in the opposite direction, and passing fountains and flower-beds and elephants and camels, and all the strange world of the City, the pleasure became rather too keen for Rosie’s mercurial heart. She took Pauline’s hand and pressed it, sitting a little bit closer to her. “Suppose we meet him?” she whispered. “What? In this crowd? Never! Besides, he isn’t likely to be outside,” said Pauline. She was only a few minutes older than Rosie, but she could not have played the elder sister more completely had she been ten years older. “We might meet _her_, anyway!” murmured Rosie. “Nonsense, Rosie. You don’t imagine she’ll be here, do you?” “I don’t know,” said Rosie, lifting her chin. “But suppose we do meet him, or either of them.” “Well, then,” said Pauline wisely, “we meet them, that’s all.”