my thoughts flying to starry nights of long ago and my first trip
across the Pacific; soft south winds; vows of eternal devotion that
kept time with the distant throbbing of a ship's engine. I fumed.
I was facing little Germany and five littler Germanys strung out
behind. You surely remember him? and how when I could n't see
things his way he swore to a wrecked heart and a
never-to-be-forgotten constancy. Mate! There was no more of a
flicker of memory in the stare of his round blue eyes than there
would have been in a newly baked pretzel. I stood still, waiting
for some glimmer of recognition. Instead, he turned to the
pincushion on his arm, whom I took to be Ma O., and I heard him say
"Herzallorliebsten." I went straight to the hotel and had it
translated. Thought it had a familiar sound. Would n't it be
interesting to know how many "only ones" any man's life history
records? To think of my imagining him eating his heart out with
hopeless longing in some far away Tibetan Monastery. And here he
was, pudgy and content, with his fat little brood waddling along
behind him. If our vision could penetrate the future, verily
Romance would have to close up shop. Oh, no! I did n't want him
to pine entirely away, but he needn't have been in such an
everlasting hurry to get fat and prosperous over it. Would n't
Jack howl?

I took good care to see that he was not stopping at this hotel.
Then I went back to my own thoughts of the happy years that had
been mine since Little Germany bade me a tearful good-by.

And, too, I wanted to think out some plan whereby I can keep in
touch with Sada and be friendly with her relative.