“You’re not up to the mark--what?” said he. “New York doesn’t agree with me.” “I hate towns. They give you such dirty second-hand stuff to breathe. Let’s move on--what?” “To-morrow,” I said. But it seemed there was no place on earth for me. Don’t judge me so poorly as to think, or to imagine I thought, this was due wholly to Mary Kirkwood. I wish to be carefully, exactly accurate in this frank recital of a man’s point of view. She was responsible for my forlorn state to the extent that loving her had revealed to me the futility and failure of my own life and had made me see another sort of life that would have been possible with her, that was impossible without her--without love and comradeship. But loving her did not make my life empty; it was already empty, though I had not realized it. I understood now why the big business men, as soon as they reached security, cast about for some real interest. Most of them--nearly all--were as unfortunate in their family relations as I. They had trivial wives and trivial children--mere silly strutters and spenders. They sought interest in art, in science, in religion, in exploration, in philanthropy, in politics, in stamps and butterflies, in old books and antiques, in racing stables and prize fighting, in gambling, in drink, in women. Their craving was now mine. How to find an interest that would make life attractive to me, with Mary Kirkwood left out--there was my problem. While waiting for the solution, I followed Blankenship to the Northwest. The second day from New York, as he and I were walking up and down the platform during a halt--at St. Paul, I think it was--Hartley Beechman joined us. “Didn’t I see you in the café at Delmonico’s a few days ago?” said he. “I was getting my hat and stick in a rush. It certainly looked like your back.” “It was,” said I. And I was seized with a wild longing to escape from him and a wilder longing to hold on to him and to pour out question after question. “Mrs. Kirkwood and I were lunching together,” he went on. “We talked of you. I told her I thought I had seen you, and she said she heard you were in town and was much hurt because you hadn’t looked her up.” “I was merely passing through,” said I. “She has an enormous admiration for you,” continued he. “She says you have imagination--which means that she thinks you in the small class. You know the world divides into sheep and goats on imagination, with the mass in the have-not class. I believe it’s the true distinction between House of Have and House of Have-not.” “She is well?” said I. “Always. She knows how to take care of herself. I never knew a woman so sensible--and sensible means the reverse of what it’s usually supposed to mean when applied to a woman.” This hardly sounded like an engaged man talking of his fiancée. On the other hand, Beechman was a peculiar chap. “Does she still live in the country?” “Just now--yes. Last winter she kept house for Bob in New York.”