I love to hear
you talk. You have such _feeling!_"
Jimmy attuned himself to the key of the conversation.
"Have you no sentiment in you?" he demanded.
"I was just warming up, too! In another minute you would have
heard something worth while. You've damped me now. Let's talk
about my lifework again."
"Have you thought of anything?"
"I'd like to be one of those fellows who sit in offices, and sign
checks, and tell the office-boy to tell Mr. Rockerfeller they can
give him five minutes. But of course I should need a check-book,
and I haven't got one. Oh well, I shall find something to do all
right. Now tell me something about yourself. Let's drop the
future for awhile."
* * * * *
An hour later Jimmy turned into Broadway. He walked pensively,
for he had much to occupy his mind. How strange that the Petts
should have come over to England to try to induce him to return
to New York, and how galling that, now that he was in New York,
this avenue to a prosperous future was closed by the fact that
something which he had done five years ago--that he could
remember nothing about it was quite maddening--had caused Ann to
nurse this abiding hatred of him. He began to dream tenderly of
Ann, bumping from pedestrian to pedestrian in a gentle trance.
From this trance the seventh pedestrian aroused him by uttering
his name, the name which circumstances had compelled him to
abandon.
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