Consequently, she
had not time to snatch it away and vanish, with a stifled little
cry, before it had been pressed two or three times to his lips. A
little ashamed of his own boldness, Herbert remained for a few
moments in the doorway listening, and looking uneasily down the
dark passage. Presently a slight sound came over the fanlight of
Cherry's room. Could he believe his ears? The saint-like Cherry--
no doubt tutored, for example's sake, by the perfect Tappington--
was softly whistling.
In this simple fashion the first pages of this little idyl were
quietly turned. The book might have been closed or laid aside even
then. But it so chanced that Cherry was an unconscious prophet;
and presently it actually became a prudential necessity for her to
have a masculine escort when she walked out. For a growing state
of lawlessness and crime culminated one day the deep tocsin of the
Vigilance Committee, and at its stroke fifty thousand peaceful men,
reverting to the first principles of social safety, sprang to arms,
assembled at their quarters, or patrolled the streets. In another
hour the city of San Francisco was in the hands of a mob--the most
peaceful, orderly, well organized, and temperate the world had ever
known, and yet in conception as lawless, autocratic, and imperious
as the conditions it opposed.
IV.
Herbert, enrolled in the same section with his employer and one or
two fellow-clerks, had participated in the meetings of the
committee with the light-heartedness and irresponsibility of youth,
regretting only the loss of his usual walk with Cherry and the
hours that kept him from her house.
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