“I suppose not,” said Jack, “except that Mrs. Henderson has gone to Europe.” “Ah!” And Mr. Mavick didn't wait for further news, but hurried up, with a “Good-by.” So Mavick was following Carmen to Europe. Well, why not? What an unreal world it all was, that of a few months ago! The gigantic Henderson; Jack's own vision of a great fortune; Carmen and her house of Nero; the astute and diplomatic Mavick, with his patronizing airs! It was like a scene in a play. He stepped into a shop and selected a toy for the boy. It was a real toy, and it was for a real boy. Jack experienced a genuine pleasure at the thought of pleasing him. Perhaps the little fellow would not know him. And then he thought of Edith--not of Edith the mother, but of Edith the girl in the days of his wooing. And he went into Maillard's. The pretty girl at the counter knew him. He was an old customer, and she had often filled orders for him. She had despatched many a costly box to addresses he had given her. It was in the recollection of those transactions that he said: “A box of marrons glaces, please. My wife prefers that.” “Shall I send it?” asked the girl, when she had done it up. “No, thanks; we are not in town.” “Of course,” she said, beaming upon him; “nobody is yet.” And this girl also seemed a part of the old life, with her little affectation of familiarity with its ways. He went to his room--it seemed a very mean little room now--packed his bag, told the janitor he should be absent a few days, and hurried to the ferry and the train as if he feared that some accident would delay him. When he was seated and the train moved off, his thoughts took another turn. He was in for it now. He began to regret that he had not delayed, to think it all out more thoroughly; perhaps it would have been better to have written. He bought an evening journal, but he could not read it. What he read between the lines was his own life. What a miserable failure! What a mess he had made of his own affairs, and how unworthy of such a woman as Edith he had been! How indifferent he had been to her happiness in the pursuit of his own pleasure! How would she receive him? He could hardly doubt that; but she must know, she must have felt cruelly his estrangement. What if she met him with a royal forgiveness, as if he were a returned prodigal? He couldn't stand that. If now he were only going back with his fortune recovered, with brilliant prospects to spread before her, and could come into the house in his old playful manner, with the assumed deference of the master, and say: “Well, Edith dear, the storm is over. It's all right now. I am awfully glad to get home. Where's the rascal of an heir?” Instead of that, he was going with nothing, humiliated, a clerk in a twine-store. And not much of a clerk at that, he reflected, with his ready humorous recognition of the situation.