judge----"

The servant had reached the same conclusion. Bedient was shown into a
small room, furnished with much that was peculiarly metropolitan to
read.... He rather expected Cairns to rush from some interior, and
waited ten minutes, glancing frequently at the door through which the
servant had left.... His heart had bounded at the thought of seeing
David, and he smiled at his own hurt.... A door opened behind him. The
writer came forward quietly, with warm dignity caught him by both
shoulders and smilingly searched his eyes. Bedient was all kindness
again. "Doubtless his friends come in from Asia often," he thought.

"Andrew, it's ripping good to see you.... Why didn't you let me know
you were coming?"

"I didn't want you to alter your ways at all."

"You see, I have to keep these morning hours----"

"Go back--I'll wait gladly, or call when you like."

"Don't go away, pray, unless there is something you must do for the
next hour or so."

* * * * *

In waiting, Bedient did not allow himself to search for anything
theatric or unfeeling at the centre of the episode. Cairns had moved in
many of the world atmospheres, and had done some work which the world
noted with approval. Moreover, he had called from Bedient bestowals of
friendship which could not be forgotten.... "I have been alone and in
the quiet so much that _I_ can remember," Bedient mused, "while he has
been rushing about from action to action. Then New York would rub out
anybody's old impressions."

As the clock struck, Cairns appeared ready for the street. He was a
trifle drawn about the mouth, and irritated. Having been unable to work
in the past hour, the day was amiss, for he hated a broken session and
an allotment of space unfilled. Still, Cairns did not permit the other
to see his displeasure; and the distress which Bedient felt, he
attributed to New York, and not the New Yorker....

The mind of David Cairns had acquired that cultivated sense of
authority which comes from constantly being printed. He was a
much-praised young man. His mental films were altogether too many, and
they had been badly developed for the insatiable momentary markets to
which timeliness is all. Very much, he needed quiet years to synthesize
and appraise his materials.... Bedient, he regarded as a luxury, and
just at this moment, he was not in the mood for one. Cairns drove
himself and his work, forgetting that the fuller artist is drive