He walked up to the Park, went over to Broadway, and started down it, looking at the bright lights again, making his way through the happy, theater-going throngs toward Times Square. In the enjoyment of the crowds he forgot, in part, the discourtesies of the day, but he could not forget them entirely.
Why had the banker acted in such a peculiar fashion? It was not like a financial institution to refuse a deposit of a round million. Why had Griffin refused to see him? Why had he as good as been ordered out of the hotel?
"Coincidence," he told himself. "No reason on earth why such things should happen unless I am being taken for somebody else—and that wouldn't be true in the case of Griffin."
He came to a prominent hotel and went into the lobby, looking in vain for some friend of the old days with whom he could spend an hour or so. Down in Honduras he had had his million and friends, too; and here, in his old home, he had nothing but his money. At this hour, down in Honduras, the band would be playing in the plaza, and society would be out in force. There would be a soft breeze sweeping down from the hills, bringing a thousand odors that could not be detected in New York. Here and there guitars would be tinkling, and men and maidens would be meeting in the moonlight.
There would be a happy crowd at a certain club he knew, at which he always had been made welcome. A man could sit out on the veranda and look over the tumbling sea, and hear the ship's bells strike. Sidney Prale found himself just a bit homesick for Honduras.
"Got to get over it," he told himself. "No sense in feeling this way. I'll have a hundred friends before I've been in town a month!"
He went out upon the street, made his way down it, and dropped in at another hotel. There he saw Rufus Shepley sitting in an easy-chair, smoking and looking at an evening paper.
Well, he knew Shepley, at least. Shepley was only a steamship acquaintance, but he was a human being and could talk. Prale was just a bit tired of confining his conversation to waiters and cigar-store clerks.
He stopped before Shepley and cleared his throat.
"Well, we meet again, Mr. Shepley!" he said.