I got out, and the train moved off on the ninety-mile spin to Philadelphia. I wondered if I had displayed a genuine sporting interest. I was very tired, and the four-mile journey in the trolley-car was tedious. As I passed the dark house next door, Mrs. Carville's voice came back to me as she caught the meaning of my words that evening. I had said it was easy to love without responsibility, and she had answered with an eagerness of assent that I could not forget. I had at times experienced the evanescent and perilous temptations of that love that needs no understanding, the love that lights no torch, and is but a vagrom fancy crossing the beaten tracks of life ... for an instant I stood, with the key in my hand, and pondered the next house and the sombre secret of which it was the symbol. On the horizon the great light on the Metropolitan Tower flashed the hour of midnight. As I let myself in, it occurred to me that Mr. Carville would be walking to and fro, smoking a meditative pipe beneath the stars, his thoughts, no doubt, flying westward like enigmatic night-birds, and hovering above the home towards which he was speeding. CHAPTER XIV DISCUSSION One of the immemorial customs of New York, whenever a stranger arrives from across the sea, should he by any chance have ever done anything, anywhere, is to give him a show. When you understand the root-principle of this practice, you are on the way to understanding New York, and incidentally, America. For in spite of many cynical arguments to the contrary, I remain satisfied that New York is, after all, part of the United States. Just as Broadway is a rather over-illuminated Main Street, so the metropolitan press is a highly concentrated Local Interest. You arrive on an ocean liner instead of on the Limited, but the principle is the same. You come from foreign parts, from effete Europe; you are a distinguished stranger, and everybody, in the person of their press, turns out to stare and cheer and find out your opinion of our glorious country. It is true that, after a few days of embarrassing publicity, your photograph vanishes from the daily sheets, your hotel ceases to be besieged by public emissaries asking your opinion of Mr. Roosevelt, Baked Beans or Twilight Sleep; you discover (with a pang) that you are forgotten, and a French Scientist or an Italian Futurist, or a Russian Nihilist has taken your place. But that, after all, may be the extent of your merits. You have had your show. New York has given your hand a jovial, welcome squeeze. The most hospitable hosts cannot forever regard you as a new arrival. You pass on, and others take the floor in the spot-light and register surprise, pleasure, indignation, criticism or whatever their peculiar talent may dictate. And this custom of the town is not at all comparable with the reception accorded St. Paul when he arrived at Athens and found the citizens of that republic hankering after some new thing. It is at the