It was not until later on, when he was alone, that Tavernake realized with how little interest he listened to his companion's talk of their success. It was so short a time ago since the building up of a fortune had been the one aim upon which every nerve of his body was centered. Curiously enough, now he seemed to take it as a matter of course.
“On second thoughts, I'll send a tailor round to the hotel,” Pritchard declared. “I've rooms myself next yours. We can go out and buy boots and the other things afterwards.”
By nightfall, Tavernake's wardrobe was complete. Even Pritchard regarded him with a certain surprise. He seemed, somehow, to have gained a new dignity.
“Say, but you look great!” he exclaimed. “They won't believe it at the meeting to-morrow that you are the man who crossed the Yolite Mountains and swam the Peraneek River. That's a wonderful country you were in, Tavernake, after you left the tracks.”
They were in Broadway, with the roar of the city in their ears, and Tavernake, lifting his face starwards, suddenly seemed to feel the silence once more, the perfume of the pine woods, the scent of nature herself, freed through all these generations of any presence of man.
“I'll never keep away from it,” he said, softly. “I'll have to go back.”
Pritchard smiled.
“When your report's in shape and the dollars are being scooped in, they'll send you back fast enough—that is, if you still want to go,” he remarked. “I tell you, Leonard Tavernake, our city men here are out for the dollars. Over on your side, a man makes a million or so and he's had enough. One fortune here only seems to whet the appetite of a New Yorker. By the way,” he added, after a moment's hesitation, “does it interest you to know that an old friend of yours is in New York?”
Tavernake's head went round swiftly.
“Who is it?” he asked.