Among the letters on the desk was one from Miss Hitchcock, asking him to spend the coming Saturday and Sunday at Lake Forest. There was to be a small house party, and the new club was to be open. Sommers prepared to answer it at once--to regret. He had promised himself to see Mrs. Preston instead. In writing the letter it seemed to him that he was taking a position, was definitely deciding something, and at the close he tore it in two and took a fresh sheet. Now was the time, if he cared for the girl, to come nearer to her. He had told himself all the way back from New York that he did care--too much. She was not like the rest. He laughed at himself. A few years hence she would be like the rest and, what is more, he should not find her so absorbing now, if she were not like the rest, essentially. He wrote a conventional note of acceptance, and went out to mail it. Possibly all these people were right in reading the world, and the aim of life was to show one's power to get on. He was worried over that elementary aspect of things rather late in life. CHAPTER XV These days there were many people on the streets, but few were busy. The large department stores were empty; at the doors stood idle floor-walkers and clerks. It was too warm for the rich to buy, and the poor had no money. The poor had come lean and hungry out of the terrible winter that followed the World's Fair. In that beautiful enterprise the prodigal city had put forth her utmost strength, and, having shown the world the supreme flower of her energy, had collapsed. There was gloom, not only in La Salle Street where people failed, but throughout the city, where the engine of play had exhausted the forces of all. The city's huge garment was too large for it; miles of empty stores, hotels, flat-buildings, showed its shrunken state. Tens of thousands of human beings, lured to the festive city by abnormal wages, had been left stranded, without food or a right to shelter in its tenantless buildings. As the spring months moved on in unseasonable, torrid heat, all the sores of the social system swelled and began to break. The bleak winter had seen mute starvation and misery, and the blasts of summer had brought no revival of industry. Capital was sullen, and labor violent. There were meetings and counter-meetings; agitators, panaceas, university lecturers, sociologizing preachers, philanthropists, politicians--discontent and discord. The laborer starved, and the employer sulked. "The extravagant poor are unwilling to let the thrifty reap the rewards of their savings and abstinence," lectured the Political Economist of the standard school. "The law of wages and capital is immutable. More science is needed." "The rich are vultures and sharks," shrieked the Labor Agitator. "And will ye let your brother starve?" exhorted the Preacher. "For it is as clear as the nose on your face that corporations corrupt legislatures, and buy judges, and oppress the poor," insinuated the Socialist.