"Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

And then--and then they sped away, and I followed them with dimming
gaze till I could see them no more. I trudged home. . . .

I stood on the upper deck. The spires and domes of the city faded on
my sight till all merged into a gray smoky patch on the horizon. With
a dead cigar clenched between my teeth I watched and watched with a
callous air, as though there had been no wrench, as though I had not
left behind all I loved in the world. And yet I gazed, the keen salt
air singing past my ears, till there was nothing but the sea as far as
the eye could scan.

Thus I began the quest of the elusive, which is a little of love, a
little of adventure, and a little of all things.




CHAPTER III

Hillars hadn't been down to the office in two days, so the assistant
said.

"Is he ill?" I asked, as I carried a chair to the window.

"Ill?" The young man coughed affectedly.