“You see?” cried Eva tragically. She was looking at Glidden; she seemed to think that he was on whatever side she might select. He was leaving us, ready to make the perilous passage of the slippery sidewalk to his door; and he paused and looked from Eva to Nicholas with it plain on his face that he had started none of it but that he saw no reason why he should not enjoy the spectacle. I have never seen another man with so profound an interest coupled with so complete an indifference. The treacherous sidewalk was, in his eyes, quite as human in its attempt to upset his equilibrium, as Eva and Nicholas at internecine war. Nicholas had recovered his poise. In fact, looking back, I think I never saw him wholly lose it. In his control of even his sudden flares of rage against Eva he was disciplined; in this he showed his kinship to his mother. He said, now, that he was hungry, and asked where they were to dine, and when. “Oh, Nick, darling!” she exclaimed. “You can’t possibly be hungry! We shall be nibbling at sandwiches all night!” His reply, that sandwiches were not food, brought forth a statement which she appeared to consider an explanation of all that bothered her. “You’re a Dutchman,” she let fall, definitely final about it. But she added--Eva always added: “So many things are more important than the question of food.” The taxi waited at my hotel, the door still shut, while they argued it. “I can tell you this, my girl,” he propounded, “food is basically the most important thing, for on its supply and general excellence hinges what you have in mind.” “What have I in mind?” “Work!” He grinned at her. “To that, I’ll add love. And I should like to ask you how either work or love would go on, on a basis of artistic victuals?” “I’m leaving you,” I interrupted firmly; for Eva was asserting, on a higher key, that he was a Dutchman. I left him saying firmly: “And what’s the matter with that? What’s wrong with Dutchmen? Who started this city, I’d like to know, if not Dutchmen?” Through the now closing door of the taxi I heard her, “I’m tired of hearing about it.”