There was not much to be done about my leaving Chicago; I had rooted there shallowly. I went out that afternoon to tell Pauline good-bye, for I wished to avoid Henry. It seemed a great step, my going away. There was a kind of finality about it. The casual character of my relation to the stage had disappeared; I was about to be married to it. Pauline cried a little; in spite of there being so much in my life that I couldn't tell her, I remembered how long we had been friends and that we were very fond of one another. She couldn't, of course, quite abandon her favourite moral attitude. "You have a great work, Olivia, a great responsibility. You must remember that you are the trustee of a rare gift." "I'll take as good care of it," I assured her, "as those who sent it take of me." At the time I believe I felt that the Powers _had_ taken notice of me at last. I got away as soon as possible; it seemed kinder to Griffin. We had been divided as by a sword; he knew now there was nothing between us and he was abashed at the memory of having touched me. All that time we had lurked behind the pressure of packing and settling my affairs; we never came out squarely and faced one another. I think some latent manhood that had risen to my need of him, slunk back with the certainty that I could do very well without him. "You'll be sure and hunt me up if you come to New York?" I urged; I wasn't going to be accused of disloyalty because of the rise in my fortunes. He shook his head. "You'll be up among the nobs then." He looked at me for a moment wistfully, "You'll remember that I said I wouldn't try to hold you?" I let him get what comfort he could out of the generosity he imagined in himself at that. Seen against the shining background which Polatkin's money had made for me, he looked almost weazened. "Good-bye," I said, with another handshake, and I set my face steadily toward New York. BOOK IV CHAPTER I