e orders to pack
his things, purchased interminable green tickets, dined unusually well
at his club, and was off in no time to the unknown West.

There was a theory in his family that it would have been a decenter
thing for him to stop running about and settle down to work. But his
thoughtful father had given him a wealthy mother, and as earning a
living was not a necessity, he failed to see why it was a duty. "Work is
becoming to some men," he once declared, "like whiskers or red ties,
but it does not follow that all men can stand it." After that the family
found him "hopeless," and the argument dropped.

He was just under thirty years, as good-looking as most men, with no
one dependent upon him and an income that had withstood both the Maison
Doree and a dahabeah on the Nile. He never tired of seeing things and
peoples and places. "There's game to be found anywhere," he said, "only
it's sometimes out of season. If I had my way--and millions--I should
run a newspaper. Then all the excitements would come to me. As it
is--I'm poor, and so I have to go all over the world after them."

This agreeable theory of life had worked well; he was a little bored at
times--not because he had seen too much, but because there were not
more things left to see. He had managed somehow to keep his enthusiasms
through everything--and they made life worth living. He felt too a
certain elation--like a spirited horse--at turning toward home, but
Washington had not much to offer him, and the thrill did not last. His
big bag and his hatbox--pasted over with foolish labels from continental
hotels--were piled in the corner of his compartment, and he settled back
in his seat with a pleasurable sense of expectancy. The presence in the
next room of a very smart appearing young woman was prominent in his
consciousness. It gave him an uneasiness which was the beginning of
delight. He had seen her for only a second in the passageway, but that
second had made him hold himself a little straighter. "Why is it," he
wondered, "that some girls make you stand like a footman the moment
you see them?" Grenfall had been in love too many times to think of
marriage; his habit of mind was still general, and he classified
women broadly. At the same time he had a feeling that in this case
generalities did not apply well; there was something about the girl that
made him hesitate at labelling her "Class A, or B, or Z." What it was
he did not know, but--unaccountably-