undertone of menace in it, because the undecorated gentlemen in
front of the New York Hotel were probably Southerners, and
Secessionists in principles; that hostelry being the rendezvous in
New York of everything Southern.

So, having bestowed his mischievous advice, Berkley strolled on
down Broadway, his destination being the offices of Craig and Son,
City and Country Real Estate, where he had a desk to himself, a
client or two in prospect, and considerable leisure to study the
street, gas, and sewer maps of New York City.

Tiring of this distraction, he was always at liberty to twiddle his
thumbs, twirl his pencil, yawn, blink, and look out of the window
at the City Park across the way, where excited citizens maintained
a steady yelling monotone before the neighbouring newspaper offices
all day long.

He was also free to reflect upon his own personal shortcomings, a
speculation perhaps less damaging than the recent one he had
indulged in; and he thought about it sometimes; and sometimes about
Ailsa Paige, whom he had not again seen since the unaccountable
madness had driven him to trample and destroy the first real
inclination he had ever had for a woman.

This inclination he occasionally found leisure to analyse, but, not
understanding it, never got very far, except that, superficially,
it had been more or less physical. From the moment he saw her he
was conscious that she was different; insensibly the exquisitely
volatile charm of her enveloped him, and he betrayed it, awaking
her, first, to uneasy self-consciousness; then uneasy consciousness