" she said, and again, "go to him."

With a heavy heart the boy obeyed. He waved his hat to her once more
from below, and then rapidly disappeared in the crowd. For a moment
strange misgivings cramped her heart, and something within her called
out to him: "Do not go! Do not return to that house." But no sound
issued from her lips. Worldly wisdom had sealed them, had stifled the
inner voice. And soon the boy's golden head was swallowed up in the
distance.

XVI

While the train sped to New York, Ethel Brandenbourg was the one object
engaging Ernest's mind. He still felt the pressure of her lips upon his,
and his nostrils dilated at the thought of the fragrance of her hair
brushing against his forehead.

But the moment his foot touched the ferry-boat that was to take him to
Manhattan, the past three weeks were, for the time being at least,
completely obliterated from his memory. All his other interests that he
had suppressed in her company because she had no part in them, came
rushing back to him. He anticipated with delight his meeting with
Reginald Clarke. The personal attractiveness of the man had never seemed
so powerful to Ernest as when he had not heard from him for some time.
Reginald's letters were always brief. "Professional writers," he was
wont to say, "cannot afford to put fine feeling into their private
correspondence. They must turn it into copy." He longed to sit with the
master in the studio when the last rays of the daylight were tremulously
falling through the stained window, and to discuss far into the
darkening night philosophies young and old. He longed for Reginald's
voice, his little mannerisms, the very perfume of his rooms.

There also was a deluge of letters likely to await him in his apartment.
For in his hurried departure he had purposely left his friends in the
dark as to his whereabouts. Only to Jack he had dropped a little note
the day after his meeting with Ethel.

He earnestly hoped to find Reginald at home, though it was well nigh ten
o'clock in the evening, and he cursed the "rapid transit" for its
inability to annihilate space and time. It is indeed disconcerting to
think how many months, if not years, of our earthly sojourn the dwellers
in cities spend in transportation conveyances that must be set down as a
dead loss in the ledger of life. A nervous impatience against things
material overcame Ernest in the subway. It is ever the mere stupid
obstacle of matter that weight