n the
other side the public, I in command, you will say that my yearning for
distraction must have been gratified. If the road from his cell were long
enough, the condemned man would be fretting less about the gallows than
about the tight shoe that was making him limp and wince at every step.
Besides, in human affairs it is the personal, always the personal. I soon
got used to the crowds, to the big head-lines in the newspapers, to the
routine of cannonade and reply.

But the old thorn, pressing persistently--I could not get used to that. In
the midst of the adulation, of the blares upon the trumpets of fame that
saluted my waking and were wafted to me as I fell asleep at night--in the
midst of all the turmoil, I was often in a great and brooding silence,
longing for her, now with the imperious energy of passion, and now with
the sad ache of love. What was she doing? What was she thinking? Now that
Langdon had again played her false for the old price, with what eyes was
she looking into the future?

Alva, settled in a West Side apartment not far from the ancestral white
elephant, telephoned, asking me to come. I went, because she could and
would give me news of Anita. But as I entered her little drawing-room,
I said: "It was curiosity that brought me. I wished to see how you were
installed."

"Isn't it nice and small?" cried she. "Billy and I haven't the slightest
difficulty in finding each other--as people so often have in the big
houses." And it was Billy this and Billy that, and what Billy said and
thought and felt--and before they were married, she had called him William,
and had declared "Billy" to be the most offensive combination of letters
that ever fell from human lips.

"I needn't ask if _you_ are happy," said I presently, with a dismal
failure at looking cheerful. "I can't stay but a moment," I added, and if I
had obeyed my feelings, I'd have risen up and taken myself and my pain away
from surroundings as hateful to me as a summer sunrise in a death-chamber.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, in some confusion. "Then excuse me." And she hastened
from the room.

I thought she had gone to order, or perhaps to bring, the tea. The long
minutes dragged away until ten had passed. Hearing a rustling in the hall,
I rose, intending to take leave the instant she appeared. The rustling
stopped just outside. I waited a few seconds, cried, "Well, I'm off. Next
time I want to be alone, I'll know where to come," and advanced to th