During the remainder of the afternoon Edward Henry saw the whole of New
York, with bits of the Bronx and Yonkers in the distance, from Seven
Sach’s second automobile. In his third automobile he went to the
theatre and saw Seven Sachs act to a house of over two thousand dollars.
And lastly he attended a supper and made a speech. But he insisted upon
passing the remainder of the night on the _Lithuania_. In the morning
Isabel Joy came aboard early and irrevocably disappeared into her berth.
And from that moment Edward Henry spent the whole secret force of his
individuality in fervently desiring the _Lithuania_ to start. At two
o’clock, two hours late, she did start. Edward Henry’s farewells to the
admirable and hospitable Mr. Sachs were somewhat absent-minded, for
already his heart was in London. But he had sufficient presence of mind
to make certain final arrangements.
"Keep him at least a week," said Edward Henry to Seven Sachs, "and I
shall be your debtor for ever and ever."
He meant Carlo Trent, still bedridden.
As from the receding ship he gazed in abstraction at the gigantic,
inconvenient word--common to three languages--which is the first thing
seen by the arriving, and the last thing seen by the departing, visitor,
he meditated:
"The dearness of living in the United States has certainly been
exaggerated."
For his total expenses, beyond the confines of the quay, amounted to one
cent, disbursed to buy an evening paper which had contained a brief
interview with himself concerning the future of the intellectual drama
in England. He had told the press-man that "The Orient Pearl" would run
a hundred nights. Save for putting "The Orient Girl" instead of "The
Orient Pearl," and two hundred nights instead of one hundred nights,
this interview was tolerably accurate.
IV.
Two entire interminable days of the voyage elapsed before Edward Henry
was clever enough to encounter Isabel Joy--the most famous and the least
visible person on the ship. He remembered that she had said: "You won’t
see anything of me."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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