man I'd like to know," she had simultaneously been her own audience, seated aloof and observing the actress. Moreover, as audience, she had said: "Walter goes. That brown-faced man coming in and looking at me, could that be He?" And she had let the brown-faced man become aware for an instant of her eyes upon him; so here he was—of course!
"You'll get the notice, Miss Ambler," he said, delighted. "I hope you can stand it as well as the frankness."
"I think I can. Has it begun?"
"Decisively!" he rejoined; and he went on at once: "After a man has been cut off a long time from his kind, he comes back to them as a lonely stranger. My wife used to go with me upon my expeditions; but since her death I've gone alone. Coming back to New York has seemed to me the loneliest of all my expeditions, though it might surprise you to hear me say so, Miss Ambler. I've moved among crowds of people ever since I landed, two weeks ago; I've been obliged to make speeches at science association dinners—even at other dinners. I've been in a whirl of lunches and parties and reporters and celebrities; I've even danced until three in the morning. Yet I've never felt so alone in my life; it may be nostalgia
