The first summer after his settlement in New York he spent in Europe, traveling and sketching; the second he went to Labrador with a scientific expedition. From this he had now returned, as the early October frosts were sending the reddened leaves skurrying to earth, and the out of town sojourners were hurrying back to their city homes.
Radnor experienced a strange feeling of gladness when he caught sight of the uneven roof lines of the Knickerbocker town as he steamed up the bay. And yet he expected no one to meet him, and anticipated taking up the old life just where he had left off.
Nevertheless this sense of odd contentment abided with him all through the turmoil and confusion of arriving, and sent him for the night to one of the new palace hotels instead of to his lonely quarters in the studio.
Had time cured the old wound, he asked himself? But no; he knew that could not be, and he expected to wake up the next morning his old self again.
But the morrow found him still with the same inexplicable buoyancy of spirit, and the business friends whom he called on during the forenoon congratulated him on the great good his trip had done him. Among the orders he received was one for a sketch in Central Park, and early in the afternoon he went up to the city’s great pleasure ground to refreshen his memory of it.
It was Saturday, and children were everywhere. A crowd of them of all sizes were eagerly gathering around the Lohengrin boats as Radnor strolled along the path that skirts the pond.
The swan-like craft sent the young man’s mind backward with a rush; and yet in his present mood he did not try to stem the current of thought. On the other hand, he astonished himself by stepping aboard one of the boats for a sail. A nurse with three young charges occupied the seat with him, and had her hands and eyes fully occupied in keeping them all out of the water. Radnor took pity on her at length, and offered to take one of them, a little girl, on his knee.
This arrangement delighted the child, to say nothing of relieving the nurse, and presently the little thing began to prattle away to Radnor as though he were an old acquaintance.
“I’ve seen you before,” she presently announced, turning her gaze from the water in front of them to look up earnestly into his face.
“Oh, I guess not,” he answered, smiling down into the deep blue eyes, the brows of which now began to knit in perplexed thought. “I never saw you in my life before today, so how could you see me?”