No!—the sun had been a part of him. And if the wind had not, why had he understood its words so well? Desperately, he would cling to his conviction, that though the sea was a subtle, mighty mirror, he was a part of the far things of beauty that swept and flamed and trilled above them both. Unto the last, he would cling to this. And a man clinging lives.
Sarah was back in her home. Quincy was back in the City.
The first evening which the much-affaired young lady found for him, he went to see Clarice. She had to break a dance engagement in order to fit him in, at all. This gladdened Quincy. But the evening was none the less a failure. Clarice seemed mostly the self she showed to the world. Her talk was practical and hard. Within, the cause of this was solely her irritation at Quincy’s supine acceptance of just that self. She longed to have him crush it away—in his arms if need be. So she flaunted it in his face. She meant to goad Quincy on. But she succeeded merely in dejecting him. He was past fighting the van-guards of the City. Its body had annihilated him. He needed help, revivement—not taunting. But Clarice was not yet inclined, even had she felt this, to go so far. Wherefore, Quincy went away, resolved not to come back too soon again.
Meantime, December crept along on its frozen feet—crept along half of its ironic passage. Frost and the blare of lights, frost and the heat of music, frost and the fluency of crowds. A month of paradox is December in Manhattan. Quincy was in no mood for it, even as for its offshoot, the methods of Clarice.
And now, the New Year shook out the wrinkles from its frills and made announcement of its hilarious advent.
Quincy decided to stay alone—not to go home, not to make an engagement. To stay really alone among the millions.
But as the day drew near, something old and clamorous and yearning stirred once more within him. A swan song perhaps, but it amazed him with its lilt and fervor. He feared that lonely night as any lad, brimming with vitality. He wished to live, to joy, to share. Life bubbled. He threw over his diseased resolve—for so he termed it—to stay alone. He was unhappy. He would be glad. His mind swam to Clarice in a bath of colored feeling. He saw her differently. He saw that he wanted her. He saw that she wanted him. He looked upon his place of business as one of promise. He counted his prospects—his income in one year, in two, in ten! He knew that he wished to share the New Year’s Eve with her, with no one else,—and with no one else, his life!
Throbbing with expectancy, half parched in his fever, he dashed off a note to her, inviting her to dine with him alone on the year’s last day—to revel with him alone, into the New. He put a special delivery stamp upon his note and mailed it, fatefully. Then he waited. New Year’s Eve was four days beyond. Would she come? Would he live? Was there a difference between these questions?
That night, her answer came. It read:
Dear, dear Quincy: