Shelby had had easy sailing up till that time. His pride was hurt by the reception of the book; and he told me he was going to flee to London--which he straightway did. Then I heard of him in his beloved England; and from there he sent me several short manuscripts filled with his old grace and charm of style--a sort of challenge to his critics. But always we waited for the story with a punch; for the story that would show there was a soul in the fellow. These pale blossoms were all very well--as magazine bait to capture the young girl reader of our smart periodical; but too many of them cloyed. It was as though you served a banquet and made _hors d'oeuvres_ the main dish. Yet his popularity with our readers was tremendous. Letters, addressed in feminine handwriting, came to him in our care every day, from all over the land; and he was no doubt flattered by silly women who were fascinated even more by his fiction after we printed his romantic photograph. For he had a profile that captivated many a girl, eyes that seemed to speak volumes; and no doubt there were numerous boudoirs that contained his picture, just as his rooms contained so many likenesses of Marguerite Davis. I next heard of him in Egypt, where he said he was gathering colour for a new romance. He stayed away several months, and then blew in one morning, better-looking than ever, brown and clear-eyed. He had been all over the Orient, and he said his note-book was full of material. Now he could sit down quietly and write. He had so much to put on paper, he told me. But he hadn't. He dreamed adventure, he craved adventure; but nothing ever happened to him. His trips were invariably on glassy seas. He traveled by himself--he hadn't even one chum whom he cared to have share his joys; and though he penetrated the jungles of Africa at one time, the lions remained mysteriously in hiding, and the jaguars didn't even growl. I remember that this came out one night at a dinner party he and I went to at the home of a friend of mine. A Captain Diehart was there--a most delightful man of fifty or so, who had just returned from a trip around the world; and he fascinated us all by his lively recounting of certain dramatic happenings in the Far East. Zulus had captured him once, and he had come perilously close to death on so many occasions that it was a miracle that he should be sitting here now, sipping his champagne and smoking his cigarette. On the way home--I had a habit of seeing Shelby to his doorstep during this period--he turned to me and said: "Isn't it strange, Allison, that nothing of that kind has ever happened to me? I move about all the while, I look eagerly for excitement, I hope always for the supreme adventure--and I never find it. Yet I love romance. Why does it never come to me?" I was silent for a few paces. I felt so sorry for him. For once he had told me what was in his heart.