For three days nothing happened except within myself. This focusing of men and women into vast assemblies from four to seven every afternoon began to strike me as the counterpart of the gatherings I was watching each day between twelve and one on the pavements of Fifth Avenue. Though the activities were different, the same obscure set of motives seemed to lie behind both. In both there was the impulse to crowd densely together, as if promiscuity was a source of excitement. In both there was a vacuity that was not purposeless. In both there was a suggestion of the sleeping wild beast. While in the one case the accompaniment was the inchoate uproar of the streets, in the other it was an orchestra that jazzed with the monotonous incitement of Oriental tom-toms, nagging, teasing, tormenting the wild beast to get up and show his wildness. Across tea-rooms or between arcades one could see couples dancing in a languorous semi-paralysis of which the fascination lay in a hint of barbaric shamelessness. Barbaric shamelessness marked the huge shaven faces of most of the men and the kilts of most of the women. I mention these details only to point out that to me, after my mysterious absence, they indicated a socially new America. It was the fourth afternoon when, drifting with the crowd through a corridor lined with tables at which small parties were having tea, I felt the long-expected tap on my shoulder. In the interval too brief to reckon before turning round two possibilities were clear in my mind. The unknown crime from which I was running away might have found me out—or some friend had come to my deliverance. Either event would be welcome, for even if it were arrest I should learn my name and history. "Hello, old chap! Come and have some tea." I was disappointed. It was only Boyd Averill. Behind him his wife and sister were seated at one of the little tables. It was the sort of invitation one couldn’t refuse, especially as they saw I was strolling without purpose. It was Mrs. Averill who talked, in the bored _voix traînante_ of one who has everything the world can give, except what she wants most. I had seen before that she was a beautiful woman, but never so plainly as now—a woman all softness and dimpling curves, with the same suggestions of the honeyed and melting and fatigued in her glances that you got from the inflection of her sentences. She explained that they had come from a song recital in the great hall up-stairs. It was given at this unusual time of the year by a well-known singer who was passing through New York on her way to Australia. With this interruption she continued the criticism she had been making when I sat down, and which dealt with certain phrases in a song—Goethe’s "_Ueber allen Gipfeln_." "The Schubert setting?" I asked, after informing Miss Averill as to how I should have my tea. "No, the Hugo Wolff."