“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 driven....  Luzon and pack-train memories were dim in his mind.  He did not forget that he had won his first name in that field, but he did forget for a time the wonderful night-talks.  A multitude of impressions since, had disordered these delicate and formative hours.  Only now, in his slow-rousing heart he felt a restlessness, a breath of certain lost delights.

It was a sappy May day.  The spring had been late—­held long in wet and frosty fingers—­and here was the first flood of moist warmth to stir the Northern year into creation.  Cairns was better after a brisk walk.  Housed for long, unprofitable hours, everything had looked slaty at first.

“Where are you staying, Andrew?”

“Marigold.”

“Why do you live ’way down there?  That’s a part of town for business hours only.  The heart of things has been derricked up here.”

“I’m very sure of a welcome there,” Bedient explained.  “My old friend Captain Carreras had Room 50, from time to time for so many years, that I fell into it with his other properties.  Besides, all the pirates, island kings and prosperous world-tramps call at the Marigold. And then, they say—­the best dinner——­”

“That’s a tradition of the Forty-niners——­”

“I have no particular reason for staying down there, even if I keep the room.  I’ll do that for the Captain’s sake....  I’m not averse to breezing around up-town.”