A month passed. All the work in which Larcher had enlisted Davenport's cooperation was done. Larcher would have projected more, but the artist could not be pinned down to any definite engagement. He was non-committal, with the evasiveness of apathy. He seemed not to care any longer about anything. More than ever he appeared to go about in a dream. Larcher might have suspected some drug-taking habit, but for having observed the man so constantly, at such different hours, and often with so little warning, as to be convinced to the contrary.
One cold, clear November night, when the tingle of the air, and the beauty of the moonlight, should have aroused any healthy being to a sense of life's joy in the matchless late autumn of New York, Larcher met his friend on Broadway. Davenport was apparently as much absorbed in his inner contemplations, or as nearly void of any contemplation whatever, as a man could be under the most stupefying influences. He politely stopped, however, when Larcher did.
“Where are you going?” the latter asked.
“Home,” was the reply; thus amended the next instant: “To my room, that is.”
“I'll walk with you, if you don't mind. I feel like stretching my legs.”
“Glad to have you,” said Davenport, indifferently. They turned from Broadway eastward into a cross-town street, high above the end of which rose the moon, lending romance and serenity to the house-fronts. Larcher called the artist's attention to it. Davenport replied by quoting, mechanically:
“'With how slow steps, O moon, thou clim'st the sky, How silently, and with how wan a face!'”
“I'm glad to see you out on so fine a night,” pursued Larcher.
“I came out on business,” said the other. “I got a request by telegraph from the benevolent Bagley to meet him at his rooms. He received a 'hurry call' to Chicago, and must take the first train; so he sent for me, to look after a few matters in his absence.”
“I trust you'll find them interesting,” said Larcher, comparing his own failure with Bagley's success in obtaining Davenport's services.