But he did not hear the answer, for Reginald's scepticisms had more
deeply impressed him than he cared to confess to himself.




VII


The two boys had bathed their souls in the sea-breeze, and their eyes in
light.

The tide of pleasure-loving humanity jostling against them had carried
their feet to the "Lion Palace." From there, seated at table and
quenching their thirst with high-balls, they watched the feverish
palpitations of the city's life-blood pulsating in the veins of Coney
Island, to which they had drifted from Brighton Beach.

Ernest blew thoughtful rings of smoke into the air.

"Do you notice the ferocious look in the mien of the average frequenter
of this island resort?" he said to Jack, whose eyes, following the
impulse of his more robust youth, were examining specimens of feminine
flotsam on the waves of the crowd.

"It is," he continued, speaking to himself for want of an audience,
"the American who is in for having a 'good time.' And he is going to get
it. Like a huntsman, he follows the scent of happiness; but I warrant
that always it eludes him. Perhaps his mad race is only the epitome of
humanity's vain pursuit of pleasure, the eternal cry that is never