Wooton scowled a little to himself, but passed the matter off lightly enough. "Well," he continued, "at any rate it does me good to see you. How are they all? I've not been back in years, you know." The reason for, and occasion of his exodus did not seem to touch him with the least shade of annoyance.
Lancaster looked at Stanley. "I'm not the man to say. I left there almost a year ago. Stanley was still there then. Stanley, tell us the news from home."
"Yes," was Stanley's reply, "and a nice lot of speculation there was about your sudden disappearance, Dick. There were all sorts of rumors. Some of them hinted at affairs of the heart." He caught the look on Dick's face, and stopped. "However, that's not to the point, I suppose you're thinking? Well, now let me see: they're all about as usual, I think, except, of course, Mrs. Stewart."
The others both started a little.
"Yes. Her husband died in January. She gave up the 'salon' of course; in fact, I think she went abroad."
Lancaster wondered what she would say to him, were they ever to meet. She must have heard about his sudden leap into public notice, his vagabondian ways, his reckless career. He became moody, abstracted. The others were not slow to observe the change in him.
"Stanley," said Wooton, "its time we left the great man to his thoughts. He is evolving a new and fearful sketch. Hope we've not intruded." They got up and were for leaving him, but he protested, and they all strolled away together. He accompanied them to their hotel, and then sauntered off for a stroll in the Thiergarten. He found a bench that gave him a view of the sandy ditch wherein the children played all day long in the sun-light, while their nurses sat placidly knitting or reading. It attracted him immediately, this picture of the little bare-legged youngsters in their quaint German attire, digging about in the sand, shouting and laughing and fighting, and all living in the evergreen country of make-believe.
He began to draw some rough sketches. So engrossed was he that the sun had sunk behind the trees before he remembered that he had promised his two townsmen to go to the "Linden" theatre with them. He got up, looked at his watch, and hailed a passing Taxometer.