quickly. I want it to fly. I want it to be night. I want to
see the crowd. I want to hear it. How can we sit here in this hot red
room waiting? Take me out!"

Claude was glad to obey her. They wrapped themselves up, for it was a
bitter day, and went down to the hall. As they passed the bureau the
well-dressed, smooth-faced men behind the broad barrier looked at them
with a certain interest and smiled. Charmian glanced round gaily and
nodded to them.

"I am sure they are all wishing us well!" she said to Claude. "I quite
love Americans."

"A taxi, sir?" asked a big man in uniform outside.

"No, thank you."

They went to the left and turned into Fifth Avenue.

How it roared that day! An endless river of motor-cars poured down it.
Pedestrians thronged the pavements, hurrying by vivaciously, brimming
with life, with vigor, with purpose. The nations, it seemed, were there.
For the types were many, and called up before the imagination a great
vision of the world, not merely a conception of New York or of America.
Charmian looked at the faces flitting past and thought:

"What a world it is to conquer!"

"Isn't it splendid out here!" she said. "What an almost maddening whirl
of life. Faces, faces, faces, and brains and souls behind them. I love
to see all these faces to-day. I feel the brains and the souls are
wanting something that you are going to give them."

"Let us hope one or two out of the multitude may be!"

"One or two! Claudie, you miserable niggard! You always think yourself
unwanted. But you will see to-night. Every reserved seat and every box
is taken, every single one! Think of that--and all because of what you
have done. Are we going to Central Park?"

"Unless you wish to promenade up and down Fifth Avenue."

"No, I did say the Park, and we will go there. But let us walk near the
edge, not too far away from this marvellous city. Never was there a city
like New York for life. I'm sure of that. It's as if every living
creature had quicksilver in his veins--or her veins. For I never saw
such vital women as one sees here anywhere else! Oh, Claude! When you
conquer these wonderful women!"

Her vivacity and excitement were almost unnatural.

"New York intoxicates me to-day!" she exclaimed.

"How are you going to do without it?"

"When we go?"

"Yes, when we go home?"

"Home? But where is our home?"

"In Kensington Square, I suppose."

"I don't feel as if we should ever be able to settle down t