e her, "you see in me a man
who has been dismissed from prison, from a reformatory, from an insane
asylum. Congratulate me! I am at last a free and independent agent
again." He was blissful, exultant. "I have the appetite of three men,
the humour of six men, and good spirits enough to cheer Timon of Athens
out of the blues. I am totally indifferent to the future. So much is
certain--no Circe has power over me any more."

Miss Burns congratulated him and laughed heartily.

"What happened?" she asked.

"I will tell you all about the tragi-comedy in the City Hall some other
time. First I have to prepare you for dreadful news. Set your teeth, Miss
Eva, and listen--you are going to lose me."

"I, you!" she laughed. Yet she was somewhat taken aback, and a dark red
came and went on her face.

"Yes, you are going to lose me," Frederick repeated. "I just sent a
telegram to Peter Schmidt in Meriden, and to-morrow morning at the latest
I shall leave you. I shall leave New York, go to the country, and turn
farmer."

"Oh, I really am sorry if you are going away," said Miss Burns, turning
serious, though without the least trace of sentimentality in her voice.

"Why should you be sorry?" Frederick cried gaily. "You will come out to
see me. The man you have until now known me to be has been nothing but a
dish-rag. Perhaps, when you come to visit me in the country, you will
discover that I am good for something after all. I really think I see
land in the distance now. I feel I still have sound bones in my body.
To take an illustration from chemistry. A salt solution vigorously
stirred by the spoon of God Almighty begins to crystallise. Something in
me is struggling to crystallise. Who knows whether, when the clouds that
surround and penetrate the solution precipitate, the result of all the
storms in the glass will not be a new, solid piece of architecture.
Perhaps the evolution of a Teuton does not stop at the age of thirty.
In that case the crisis may come just before the attainment of settled
manhood, the crisis which, to all appearances, I have just safely passed
through, and which, in any circumstances, I should have had to pass
through."

Frederick now gave a brief account of the audience in the City Hall, the
comic clash of two worlds in Garry's and Lilienfeld's speeches, which he
called _tant de bruit pour une omelette_.

"The Mayor's decision," he said, "in opening up to Ingigerd the career
for which she was so anxiou