For the instant Sidwell was roused out of himself.  He looked at his companion with appreciation.  “At least you can have the consolation of knowing you have honestly tried,” he said earnestly.

Hough returned the look with equal steadiness.  “But nevertheless I have failed.”

Sidwell put on his hat, its broad brim shading his eyes and concealing their expression.

“Providence willing,” he said finally, “I shall ask Miss Baker to be my wife.”

CHAPTER XXI

LOVE IN CONFLICT

The habits of a lifetime are not changed in a day.  Ben Blair was accustomed to rising early, and he was astir next morning long before the city proper was thoroughly awake.  In the hotel where he was stopping, the night clerk looked his surprise as he nodded a stereotyped “Good-morning.”  The lobby was in confusion, undergoing its early morning scrubbing, and the guest sought the street.  The sun was just risen, but the air was already sultry, casting oppression and languor over every detail of the scene.  The bare brick and stone fronts of the buildings, the brown cobblestones of the pavements, the dull gray of the sidewalks, all looked inhospitable and forbidding.  Few vehicles were yet in motion—­distributors of necessities, of ice, of milk, of vegetables—­and they partook of the general indolence.  The horses’ ears swayed listlessly, or were set back in dogged endurance.  The drivers lounged stolidly in their seats.  Even the few passengers on the monotonously droning cars but added to the impression of tacit conformity to the inevitable.  Poorly dressed as a rule, tired looking, they gazed at their feet or glanced out upon the street with absent indifference.  It was all depressing.

Ben, normal, vigorous, country bred, shook himself and walked on.  He was as susceptible as a child to surrounding influences, and to those now about him he was distinctly antagonistic.  Life, as a whole, particularly work, the thing that does most to fill life, he had found good.  That others should so obviously find it different grated upon him.  He wanted to get away from their presence; and making inquiry of the first policeman he met, he sought the nearest park.

All his life he had heard of the beauty of the New York parks.  The few people he knew who had visited them emphasized this beauty above all other features.  Perhaps in consequence he was expecting the impossible.  At least, he was disappointed.  Here was nature, to be sure, but nature imprisoned under the thumb of man.  The visitor had a healthy desire to roll on the grass, to turn himself loose, to stretch every joint and muscle; yet signs on each side gave warning to “keep off.”  The trees, it must be admitted, were beautiful and natural,—­they could not live and be otherwise; but somehow they had the air of not being there of their own free-will.