Out of the air Author:Inez Haynes Gillmore Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: an interval in which nothing appeared, he sauntered through that door; and—with almost an effect of premeditated carelessness—through the two little rooms, which... more » so uselessly fill the central space of many New York houses, to the big sunny bedroom at the back. The windows looked out on a paintable series of backyards: on a sketchable huddle of old, stained, leaning wooden houses. At the opposite window, a purple-haired, violet-eyed foreign girl in a faded yellow blouse was making artificial nasturtiums; flame-colored velvet petals, like a drift of burning snow, heaped the table in front of her. A black cat sunned itself on the window ledge. On a distant roof, a boy with a long pole was herding a flock of pigeons. They made glittering swirls of motion and quick V-wheelings, that flashed the gray of their wings like blades and the white of their breasts like glass. Their sudden turns filled the air with mirrors. Lindsay watched their flight with the critical air of a rival. Suddenly he turned as though someone had called him; glanced inquiringly back at the doorway . . . When, a few minutes later, he sauntered into the Rochambeau, immaculate in the old gray suit he had put off when he donned the French uniform four years before, he was the pink of summer coolness and the quintessence of military calm. The little, low-ceilinged series of rooms, just below the level of the street, were crowded; filled with smoke, talk, and laughter. Lindsay at length found a table, looked about him, discovered himself to be among strangers. He ordered a cocktail, swearing at the price to the sympathetic French waiter, who made excited response in French and assisted him to order an elaborate dinner. Lindsay propped his paper against his water-glass; concentrated on it as one prepared for lonely ...« less