inquired for mail. Who
was there to write? Besides, he sought only the obscure hotels, where
he was not likely to meet any of his erstwhile fellow passengers. The
mockery and uselessness of his home-going became more and more apparent
as the days slipped by. Often he longed to fly back to the jungles, to
James, and leave matters as they were. Here and there, along the way,
he had tried a bit of luxury; but the years of economy and frugality
had robbed him of the ability to enjoy it. He was going home . . . to
what? Surely there would be no welcome for him at his journey's end.
He would return after the manner of prodigals in general, not
scriptural, to find that he was not wanted. Of his own free will he
had gone out of their lives.

He fought grimly against the thought of Elsa; but he was not strong
enough to vanquish the longings from his heart and mind. Always when
alone she was in fancy with him, now smiling amusedly into his face,
now peering down at the phosphorescence seething alongside, now
standing with her chin up-lifted, her eyes half shut, letting the
strong winds strike full in her face. Many a "good night" he sent over
the seas. An incident; that would be all.

His first day in New York left him with nothing more than a feeling of
foreboding and oppression. The expected exhilaration of returning to
the city of his birth did not materialize. So used to open spaces was
he, to distances and the circle of horizons, that he knew he no longer
belonged to the city with its Himalayan gorges and canons, whose
torrents were human beings and whose glaciers were the hearts of these.
A great loneliness bore down on him. For months he had been drawing
familiar pictures, and to find none of these was like coming home to an
empty house. The old life was indeed gone; there were no threads to
resume. A hotel stood where his club had been; the house in which he
had spent his youth was no more. He wanted to leave the city; and the
desire was with difficulty overcome.

Early the second morning he started down-town to the offices of the
Andes Construction Company. He was extraordinarily nervous. Cold
sweat continually moistened his palms. Change, change, everywhere
change; Trinity was like an old friend. When the taxicab driver threw
off the power and indicated with a jerk of his head a granite shaft
that soared up into the blue, Warrington asked:

"What place is this?"

"The Andes Building, sir. The