a change. I was looking a little tired. She invited
me to go to Japan with her, starting in mid-July. We'd pick up some
antiques for the shop in the East. It would do me a world of good.
Perhaps Mrs. Scot-Williams was right. Such a complete change might help
me to regain my old poise. I told her I would go with pleasure.

However, before I ever got started my loneliness culminated one dismal
night, two days before the Fourth of July. I had been away for two weeks
with Mrs. Scot-Williams on a suffrage campaign, combining a little
business en route. Mrs. Scot-Williams had had to return in time to
celebrate the holiday with her college-boy son and some friends of his
at her summer place on Long Island.

I arrived at the Grand Central alone, hot and tired. It was an
exceedingly warm night. I felt forlorn, returning to New York for an
uncelebrated holiday. I took the subway down town. The air was stifling.
It always manages to rob me of good-cheer. When I reached the room in
Irving Place I found Esther writing as usual. Esther had grown pale and
anemic of late. Her book had met with success, and it seemed to make her
a little more impersonal and remote than ever. I had been away two
weeks, but Esther didn't even get up as I came in. That was all right.
We're never demonstrative.

"Hello," she said, "you back?" She dipped her pen into the ink-well.

"I'm back," I replied, and went over and raised the shade. A girl all in
white and a young man carrying her coat went by, laughing intimately.
Oh, well! What of it? I shrugged. I had my career, my affairs, Van de
Vere's. "Want to come out somewhere interesting for dinner?" I suggested
to Esther.

"Sorry," she said. "Can't possibly. Got to work."

I stared at Esther's back a moment in silence. Her restricted affection
was inadequate tonight. I glanced around the room. It was unbeautiful in
July. Where was the lure of it? Where had disappeared the charm of my
life anyhow? Why should I be standing here, fighting a desire to cry? I
could go out and find some one to dine with me. Of course--of course I
could. I went to the telephone. Should it be Virginia, Rosa, Alsace and
Lorraine, Flora Bennett? None--none of them! My heart cried out for
somebody of my own tonight, upon whom I had a claim of some kind or
other. I called Malcolm, my own older brother. We had grown a little
formal of late. That was true. Never mind. I'd break through the reserve
somehow. I'd draw near him. There