At first Blinker feels entirely out of his element, but Florence shows
him the spirit in which to accept the tinsel and the rude fun-making.
He soon comes to like it--and to think very well of the naively
"different" girl beside him.
He is treated like all her other cavaliers at the time and place of
parting--she goes home alone. He returns to his apartment with a new
idea of the city's possibilities.
That same evening Florence finds an intruder unceremoniously invading
her room--a "gang" leader who believes the shot he has just fired at
an adversary has been fatal in its effect. He tells her his story, but
says he did not do the shooting. She believes him, and when the police
come to her door in their search for the culprit, she pretends that
the man opposite her at the table is her brother.
Later she learns that he has told her a falsehood, but she does not
deliver him to justice, and when she finds that the man who was shot
is not fatally injured, she sends the shielded one away in safety; for
which display of her fine sense of loyalty he becomes a veritable
watchdog, never intruding his presence upon her, but being always near
to observe the quality of the companions she still allows herself.
Blinker meets her by appointment the next evening, and the faithful
Watchdog follows them to Coney Island, vigilant, feeling sure than a
man of the evident social status of Blinker can mean no good to a girl
in Florence's station.
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