1.
Side by side they leaned over the rail of the steamer and gazed shorewards at the slowly unfolding scene before them. For some time they had all preserved an almost ecstatic silence.
“Oh, but it’s good to see home again!” Laura sighed at last.
“I’m with you,” Quest agreed emphatically. “It’s the wrong side of the continent, perhaps, but I’m aching to set my foot on American soil again.”
“This the wrong side of the continent! I should say not!” Laura exclaimed, pointing to where in the distance the buildings of the Exposition gleamed almost snow-white in the dazzling sunshine. “Why, I have never seen anything so beautiful in my life.”
The Professor intervened amiably. His face, too, shone with pleasure as he gazed landwards.
“I agree with the young lady,” he declared. “The blood and sinews of life may seem to throb more ponderously in New York, but there is a big life here on this western side, a great, wide-flung, pulsating life. There is room here, room to breathe.”
“And it is so beautiful,” Lenora murmured.
Quest glanced a little way along the deck to where a pale-faced man stood leaning upon his folded arms, gazing upon the same scene. There was no smile on Craig’s face, no light of anticipation in his eyes.
“I guess there’s one of us here,” Quest observed, “who is none too pleased to see America again.”