Reginald's letters were always brief. "Professional writers," he was
wont to say, "cannot afford to put fine feeling into their private
correspondence. They must turn it into copy." He longed to sit with the
master in the studio when the last rays of the daylight were tremulously
falling through the stained window, and to discuss far into the
darkening night philosophies young and old. He longed for Reginald's
voice, his little mannerisms, the very perfume of his rooms.

There also was a deluge of letters likely to await him in his apartment.
For in his hurried departure he had purposely left his friends in the
dark as to his whereabouts. Only to Jack he had dropped a little note
the day after his meeting with Ethel.

He earnestly hoped to find Reginald at home, though it was well nigh ten
o'clock in the evening, and he cursed the "rapid transit" for its
inability to annihilate space and time. It is indeed disconcerting to
think how many months, if not years, of our earthly sojourn the dwellers
in cities spend in transportation conveyances that must be set down as a
dead loss in the ledger of life. A nervous impatience against things
material overcame Ernest in the subway. It is ever the mere stupid
obstacle of matter that weights down the wings of the soul and prevents
it from soaring upward to the sun.

When at last he had reached the house, he learned from the hall-boy that
Clarke had gone out. Ruffled in temper he entered his rooms and went
over his mail. There were letters from editors with commissions that he
could not afford to reject. Everywhere newspapers and magazines opened
their yawning mouths to swallow up what time he had. He realised at once
that he would have to postpone the writing of his novel for several
weeks, if not longer.