"Strafford,"I said,"I've made up my mind to go to Europe.""I have been thinking for some time,Mr.Paret,"he replied,"that a sea-voyage is just what you need to set you on your feet."I started eastward the next morning,arriving in New York in time to catch one of the big liners sailing for Havre.On my way across the continent I decided to send a cable to Maude at Paris,since it were only fair to give her an opportunity to reflect upon the manner in which she would meet the situation.Save for an impatience which at moments Irestrained with difficulty,the moods that succeeded one another as Ijourneyed did not differ greatly from those I had experienced in the past month.I was alternately exalted and depressed;I hoped and doubted and feared;my courage,my confidence rose and fell.And yet I was aware of the nascence within me of an element that gave me a stability I had hitherto lacked:I had made my decision,and I felt the stronger for it.
It was early in March.The annual rush of my countrymen and women for foreign shores had not as yet begun,the huge steamer was far from crowded.The faint throbbing of her engines as she glided out on the North River tide found its echo within me as I leaned on the heavy rail and watched the towers of the city receding in the mist;they became blurred and ghostlike,fantastic in the grey distance,sad,appealing with a strange beauty and power.Once the sight of them,sunlit,standing forth sharply against the high blue of American skies,had stirred in me that passion for wealth and power of which they were so marvellously and uniquely the embodiment.I recalled the bright day of my home-coming with Maude,when she too had felt that passion drawing me away from her,after the briefest of possessions....Well,I had had it,the power.I had stormed and gained entrance to the citadel itself.Imight have lived here in New York,secure,defiant of a veering public opinion that envied while it strove to sting.Why was I flinging it all away?Was this a sudden resolution of mine,forced by events,precipitated by a failure to achieve what of all things on earth I had most desired?or was it the inevitable result of the development of the Hugh Paret of earlier days,who was not meant for that kind of power?