We had been accompanied downtown by Charles Glidden, who sat facing us and glancing indifferently from one to another. We were cross, and said little. I do remember Glidden wandering through a maze of words unlike his usual precision. “I was thinking of life. It’s quite a building, in itself--life. Take Eva: I’ve always been curious to see what Eva would do with life. She makes such interesting experiments.” And I remember that Eva cried out: “Stop it!” It was bitterly cold, and the still air bit and scratched at our lungs as if filled with the sharp white stars glittering above us in the hard blue sky. So still was the world on this eve of a fresh new year that we heard the snow snapping under the feet of the pedestrians. The taxi encouragingly labelled “Heated” barely melted the powdered snow clinging to our feet. Eva leaned forward and dragged at the front window. “Can’t you turn on more heat in here?” The taxi driver’s head protruded from his great coat collar, and craned to blink at us. Clouds of frozen breath shot from his nostrils, and from his mouth as he opened it to reply. “Sorry, lady. It acts up like this when it’s cold weather.” She at once began bewailing her fate. “Shut the window, can’t you, Nick? You might have noticed that it was open.” The taxi bumped over unyielding heaps of snow pushed together by the street cleaners; we heard the rasp of their wooden shovels. “I must say, Nick,” she resumed, “that in so far as climate goes your town is awe-inspiring. If it were April, this heater would boil us alive. I don’t see why anyone wants to live in this town.” She glanced around at him. “Why don’t you defend it?” I said to myself: “He may perhaps be a fool?” For he put a consoling arm around her and murmured: “There! There! The poor girl is cold!” She lifted her eyebrows at Glidden, who looked interested but only as if he were at the theatre. She sat very stiff and unyielding, and said unreasonably that she saw Nicholas considered nothing beyond the city of New York. His face close to hers in the comparative darkness of the taxi, he said softly: “Wrong! I care for you. But you’re such a cold-blooded young fish----” I watched him curiously: he must have wondered at the strong tug of everything of which he disapproved. His roots were deep in the soil of Washington Square: what matter that his flowering might come in the little house around the corner? He met my gaze, and said: “She’s prettier when she’s tranquil; isn’t she?” I began to like Nicholas Van Suydam.