th
Maude, when she too had felt that passion drawing me away from her, after
the briefest of possessions.... Well, I had had it, the power. I had
stormed and gained entrance to the citadel itself. I might have lived
here in New York, secure, defiant of a veering public opinion that envied
while it strove to sting. Why was I flinging it all away? Was this a
sudden resolution of mine, forced by events, precipitated by a failure to
achieve what of all things on earth I had most desired? or was it the
inevitable result of the development of the Hugh Paret of earlier days,
who was not meant for that kind of power?

The vibration of the monster ship increased to a strong, electric
pulsation, the water hummed along her sides, she felt the swell of the
open sea. A fine rain began to fall that hid the land--yes, and the life
I was leaving. I made my way across the glistening deck to the saloon
where, my newspapers and periodicals neglected, I sat all the morning
beside a window gazing out at the limited, vignetted zone of waters
around the ship. We were headed for the Old World. The wind rose, the
rain became pelting, mingling with the spume of the whitecaps racing
madly past: within were warmth and luxury, electric lights, open fires,
easy chairs, and men and women reading, conversing as unconcernedly as
though the perils of the deep had ceased to be. In all this I found an
impelling interest; the naive capacity in me for wonder, so long dormant,
had been marvellously opened up once more. I no longer thought of myself
as the important man of affairs; and when in the progress of the voyage I
was accosted by two or three men I had met and by others who had heard of
me it was only to feel amazement at the remoteness I now felt from a
world whose realities were stocks and bonds, railroads and corporations
and the detested new politics so inimical to the smooth conduct of
"business."

It all sounded like a language I had forgotten.

It was not until near the end of the passage that we ran out of the
storm. A morning came when I went on deck to survey spaces of a blue and
white sea swept by the white March sunlight; to discern at length against
the horizon toward which we sped a cloud of the filmiest and most
delicate texture and design. Suddenly I divined that the cloud was
France! Little by little, as I watched, it took on substance. I made out
headlands and cliffs, and then we were coasting beside them. That night I
should be i