"All the joys of heaven are in Chicago."
This sentiment of the lovable Singhalese Page would have echoed, had the anachronism been possible. A sort of chronic yearning and dissatisfaction possessed him, and the heat in St. Louis being a tangible discomfort, he dwelt to himself upon the superior vitality in the air of the lake region, and laid his discomfort at the door of the weather. It was his custom, as soon as he entered the hotel, to inquire for letters; and to-day he received one in a feminine handwriting.
The clerk noticed the expression of his face as the missive was handed him.
"That fellow can't sing 'The letter I looked for never came,'" was his comment.
Gorham's sensations, as in his room he opened the square envelope with religious care, were of a chaotic nature, which required analysis. He even went so far as to hold the folded sheet a moment and look at the opposite wall with an effort at introspection; but the insistent desire to possess himself of those written words engulfed all other considerations.
The letter was gentle and friendly like the writer herself. It compassionated him on the fact which Chicago papers reported, of a hot wave in St. Louis; and described her sight of a great Maharajah, the nabob then visiting the Fair, who, resplendent in cloth-of-gold robes and pale green turban, passed in state with his suite about the grounds. Jack had surveyed him, and with democratic audacity dubbed His Highness "that chocolate duffer."
The little letter closed with these words:—
"I am alone in the house; even the servants are away. It is rather a desolate sensation; and yet some people profess to feel more keenly the loneliness of being in a crowd of strangers, than that of being entirely by themselves. The former is your sort of loneliness at present. I wonder if you dislike it? I wonder—you always seem so sufficient unto yourself, so much more a man of intellect than of heart—I wonder if you ever feel, as I do more and more strongly every day, our dependence on each other?"
There was nothing more save the conventional ending. Page scarcely glanced at the signature. Something seemed to mount to his head, as his eyes dwelt fascinated upon the last sentence recorded. The sweetness of his instant interpretation of it so possessed and intoxicated him that no other thought could obtain entrance. All the processes of his system seemed arrested for one overwhelming moment, then the pulses, reacting, sent the blood boiling through his veins.
Mechanically he rose, and going to the bureau began throwing articles of clothing into an open valise near by.