But by six o'clock the game had played itself out for the day and I was not only tired, but depressed. I was not discouraged, for the reason that New York was full of big hotels, and I meant to begin my tramp on the morrow. There were clubs, too, into which on one pretext or another I could force my way, and there were also the great thoroughfares. Some hundreds of people in New York at that moment would probably have recognized me at a glance—if I could only come face to face with them. All my efforts for the next few weeks must be bent on doing that.
But in the mean time I was tired and lonely. There were two or three things I might do, each of which I had promised to myself with some anticipation. I could go to a good restaurant and order a good feed; I could go to a good hotel and sleep in a good bed; I could buy the evening papers and find out what kind of world I was living in.
As to carrying out this program, I had but one prudential misgiving. It might cost more money than it would be wise for me to spend. My visit to the purveyor of clothing in the afternoon had not only lightened my purse, but considerably opened my eyes. Where I had had nearly four hundred dollars I had now nearly three. With very slight extravagance, according to the standards of New York, it would come down to nearly two and then to nearly one, and then to ... But I shuddered at that, and stopped thinking.
Having stopped thinking along one set of lines, I presently found myself off on another. I saw Harry Drinkwater sitting in the dark as I was sitting in the hall of a hotel. That is, he was idle and I was idle. He was eating his heart out as I was eating out mine.
It occurred to me that I might go back to Thirty-fifth Street and take him out to dinner. Alfonso, recommended by Miss Blair, might be no more successful as a host than the lady with tresses à la madone who had given me my lunch; but we could try. At any rate, the boy wouldn't be alone on this first evening in New York, and would feel that some one cared for him.
And then something else in me revolted. No! No! A thousand times no! I had cut loose from these people and should stay loose. On saying good-by to Drinkwater that morning I had disappeared without a trace. For any one who tried to follow me now I should be the needle in a haystack. What good could come of my going back of my own accord and putting myself on a level to which I did not belong?
Like many Americans, I was no believer in the equality of men. For men as a whole I had no respect, and in none but the smallest group had I any confidence. Looking at the faces as they passed me in the hall, I saw only those of brutes—and these were mostly people who had had what we call advantages. As for those who had not had advantages I disliked them in contact and distrusted them in principle. I described myself not only as a snob, but as an aristocrat. I had worked it out that to be well educated and well-to-do was the normal. To be poor and ill educated was abnormal. Those who suffered from lack of means or refinement did so because of some flaw in themselves or their inheritance. They were the plague of the world. They created all the world's problems and bred most of its diseases. From the beginning of time they had been a source of disturbance to better men, and would be to the end of it.
It was the irony of ironies, then, that I should have become a member of a group that included a lady's maid, a chauffeur, and two stenographers, and been hailed as one of them. The lady's maid and the chauffeur I could, of course, dismiss from my mind; but the two stenographers had seemingly sworn such a friendship for me that nothing but force would cut me free from it. Very well, then; I should use force if it was needed; but it wouldn't be needed. All I had to do was to refrain from going to take Drinkwater out to dinner, and they would never know where I was.
And yet, if you would believe it, I went. Within half an hour I was knocking at his bedroom door and hearing his cheery "Come in."
Why I did this I cannot tell you. It was neither from loneliness, nor kind-heartedness, nor a sense of duty. The feet that wouldn't take the horse to the stable took him back to that crimson rooming-house, and that is all I can say.