There was not the least hope in the world for him to proceed toward his

goal this night. He realized this clearly, now that he was face to face

with actualities. It required more than the chaotic impulses that had

brought him back from the jungles of the Orient. He must reason out a plan

that should be like a straight line, the shortest distance between two

given points. How then should he pass the night, since none of his schemes

could possibly be put into operation? Return to his hotel and smoke

himself headachy? Try to become interested in a novel? Go to bed, to turn

and roll till dawn? A wild desire seized him to make a night of

it,--Maxim's, the cabarets; riot and wine. Who cared? But the desire burnt

itself out between two puffs of his cigar. Ten years ago, perhaps, this

particular brand of amusement might have urged him successfully. But not

now; he was done with tomfool nights. Indeed, his dissipations had been

whimsical rather than banal; and retrospection never aroused a furtive

sense of shame.

He was young, but not so young as an idle glance might conjecture in

passing. To such casual reckoning he appeared to be in the early twenties;

but scrutiny, more or less infallible, noting a line here or an angle

there, was disposed to add ten years to the score. There was in the nose

and chin a certain decisiveness which in true youth is rarely developed.

This characteristic arrives only with manhood, manhood that has been tried

and perhaps buffeted and perchance a little disillusioned. To state that

one is young does not necessarily imply youth; for youth is something that

is truly green and tender, not rounded out, aimless, light-hearted and

desultory, charming and inconsequent. If man regrets his youth it is not

for the passing of these pleasing, though tangled attributes, but rather

because there exists between the two periods of progression a series of

irremediable mistakes. And the subject of this brief commentary could look

back on many a grievous one brought about by pride or carelessness rather

than by intent.

But what was one to do who had both money and leisure linked to an

irresistible desire to leave behind one place or thing in pursuit of

another, indeterminately? At one time he wanted to be an artist, but his

evenly balanced self-criticism had forced him to fling his daubs into the

ash-heap. They were good daubs in a way, but were laid on without fire;

such work as any respectable schoolmarm might have equaled if not

surpassed. Then he had gone in for engineering; but precise and intricate

mathematics required patience of a quality not at his command.




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