"Good-bye."
"Good-bye."
And then—and then they sped away, and I followed them with dimming gaze till I could see them no more. I trudged home. . . .
I stood on the upper deck. The spires and domes of the city faded on my sight till all merged into a gray smoky patch on the horizon. With a dead cigar clenched between my teeth I watched and watched with a callous air, as though there had been no wrench, as though I had not left behind all I loved in the world. And yet I gazed, the keen salt air singing past my ears, till there was nothing but the sea as far as the eye could scan.
Thus I began the quest of the elusive, which is a little of love, a little of adventure, and a little of all things.
CHAPTER III
Hillars hadn't been down to the office in two days, so the assistant said.
"Is he ill?" I asked, as I carried a chair to the window.
"Ill?" The young man coughed affectedly.
"Do you believe it possible for him to come in this afternoon?"