That afternoon at the riverside he had cast his future at her feet.  She had been offered that which runs deeper than hunger or dream or toil, the elemental, the mystic, the very glory of a woman’s life.  She had been offered a life, too, of comradeship and great issues.  And now, when these gifts were withdrawn, she knew she would nevermore have rest or joy in this world.  Is not life the adventure of a man and a woman going forth together, toiling, and talking, and laughing, and creating on the road to death?  Is not earth the mating-place for souls?  Out of nature we rise and seek out each other and mate and make of life a glory and a mystery.  This is the secret of youth, and the magic of all music and of all sorrow and of all toil.  Or, so it seemed to Myra.

There is no longing in the world so tragic or terrible as that of men and women for each other.  And so Myra had her homesickness for the city transfused and sharpened by her overmastering love.  She fought with herself bitterly; she resolved to wait for one more mail.  Nothing came in that mail.

Then she evaded the issue.  There were practical reasons for her return.  Her health was quite sound again, she had been idle long enough; it was time to get back to work.  What if she did return to the city?  Surely it was not necessary to seek out Joe.  It would be enough to be near him.  He need not be troubled.  So vast is the city that he would not know of her presence.  What harm, then, in easing her heart, in getting back into the warmth and stir of life?

With a young girl’s joy she packed her trunk and took the train for New York, and at sunset, as she rode in the ferry over the North River, she stood bravely out on deck, faced the bitter and salt wind, and saw, above the flush of the waters, that breathless skyline which, like the prow of some giant ship, seemed making out to sea.  Lights twinkled in windows, signal-lamps gleamed red and green on the piers, chimneys smoked, and as the ferry nosed its way among the busy craft of the river, Myra exulted.  She was coming back!  This again was New York, real, right there, unbudged, her thousand lights like voices calling her home.  The ferry landed; she hurried out and took a surface car And how good the crowd seemed, how warm the noise and the lights, what gladness was in the evening ebb-tide of people, how splendid the avenues shone with their sparkle and their shops and their traffic!  She felt again the good hard pave under her feet.  She met again a hundred familiar scenes.  The vast flood of life seemed to engulf her, suck her up as if to say:  “Well, you’re here again!  Come, there is room!  Another human being!”

All about her was rich life, endless sights, confusion and variety.  The closing darkness was pierced with lights, windows glowed, people were hurrying home.  It was all as she had left it.  And she felt then that the city was but Joe multiplied, and that Joe was the city.  Both were cosmopolitan, democratic, tragic, light-hearted, many-faceted.  Both were careless and big and easy and roomy.  Both had a great freedom about them.  And what a freedom the city had!—­nothing snowbound here, but invitation, shops open, cars gliding, the millions transported back and forth, everything open and inviting.