It was her instinct that had impelled her to ask Tom to call. It was convention that, on Sunday afternoon, made her await his coming with trepidation. She was genuinely interested in the things for which Tom stood, and her recent-born admiration of him was sincere. Nevertheless his approaching visit was in the nature of an adventure to her. This workingman, transferred from the business world to the social world, might prove himself an embarrassing impossibility. Especially, she wondered, with more than a little apprehension, how he would be dressed. She feared a flaming necktie crawling up his collar, and perhaps in it a showy pin; or a pair of fancy shoes; or a vest of assertive pattern; or, perhaps, hair oil! When word was brought her by a maid that Tom was below, she gave an order that he was to wait, and put on her hat and jacket. She did not know him well enough to ask him to her room. She could not receive him in the parlor common to all the boarding-house. Her instinctive self told her it would be an embarrassment to him to be set amid the gossiping crowd that gathered there on Sunday afternoon. Her conventional self told her that, if he were but a tenth as bad as was possible, it would be more than an embarrassment for her to sit beside him amid those curious eyes. The street was the best road out of the dilemma. He was sitting in the high-backed hall chair when she came down. "Shall we not take a walk?" she asked. "The day is beautiful for February." Tom acceded gratefully. He had glanced through the parted portières into the parlor, and his minutes of waiting had been minutes of consternation. The first thing Ruth noted when they came out into the light of the street was that his clothes were all in modest taste, and she thrilled with relief. Mixed with this there was another feeling, a glow of pleasure that he was vindicating himself to her conventional part. Ruth lived but a few doors from Central Park. As they started across Central Park West a big red automobile, speeding above the legal rate, came sweeping down upon them, tooting its arrogant warning. Tom jerked Ruth back upon the sidewalk. She glared at the bundled-up occupants of the scurrying car. "Don't it make you feel like an anarchist when people do that?" she gasped. "Not the bomb-throwing sort." "Why not? When people do that, I've got just one desire, and that's to throw a bomb!" "What good would a bomb here or there do? Or what harm?" Tom asked humorously. "What's the use trying to destroy people that're already doomed?" Ruth was silent till they gained the other side of the street. "Doomed? What do you mean?" she then asked. "Every dog has his day, you know. Them rich people are having theirs. It's a summer day, and I guess it's just about noon now. But it's passing."