"The metropolis," he told himself, "is a maelstrom that never gives up it's human prisoners: it merely changes their cells occasionally." At which reflection he presently laughed. The old text came to him: "The thing to do is to laugh!"
"Yes," he thought, "but it's harder here than anywhere else. Much harder."
Arrived at the club, he ordered dinner, and in the short interval, set down to write a letter to his mother. For the many months of his absence abroad he had contented himself with sending her occasional newspapers, the briefest of notes, and illustrated magazines. In none of these missives had there ever been the real personal, familiar note. He had given merely the scantest news of his whereabouts and his well-being. In the life and the philosophy he had chosen there was little room for comradeships, even with his own mother. Now, however, with the distance between them so vastly less, he felt again some of the old affections that he had thought to have slain with laughter. In any event, he wrote, whether he decided to remain on this or that continent, he would pay Lincolnville a visit presently. They would have that dear, delightful talk that the months had despoiled them of.
As he stepped into the dining-room, Vanstruther nailed him. "Saw a friend of yours just now, Dick," he said, "Miss Ware!"
"Ah," was the reply, given in apparent abstraction, "they still live here then?"
"Yes. Dick did it ever occur to you that she's a devilish pretty girl?"
"Oh, look here, Van," said Dick, laughingly, "I came to feed on solids, not the lilies of your imagination. The prettiest thing in the world to me, at this date, is a good dinner."
[CHAPTER XVIII]
It is impossible, even for the most harassed of human beings, to be entirely pessimistic after a dinner that had been well prepared, tastefully served, and finely appreciated. With the coffee and the liqueur a warm glow of pleasant sentiment is sure to invade the dinner; the dismal reflections that harrowed his soul an hour ago have fled at the approach of that self-satisfied feeling that marks the man that has dined.