He dined at his sister’s in Seventy-ninth Street near Madison Avenue; he dined with the Grandcourts on Fifth Avenue; he decorated a few dances, embellished an opera box now and then, went to Lakewood and Tuxedo for week ends, rode for a few days at Hot Springs, frequented his clubs, frequented Stephanie, frequented Maxim’s.

And all the while it seemed to him as though he were temporarily enduring something which required patience, which could not last forever, which must one day end in a great change, a complete transformation for himself, of himself, of the world around him and of his aim and hope and purpose in living.  At moments, too, an odd sensation of expectancy came over him—­the sense of waiting, of suppressed excitement.  And he could not account for it.

Perhaps it concerned the finishing of his great mural frieze for the Court House—­that is, the completion of the section begun in September.  For, when it was done, and cleared out of his studio, and had been set in its place, framed by the rose and gold of marble and ormolu, a heavy reaction of relief set in, leaving him listless and indifferent at first, then idle, disinclined to begin the companion frieze; then again restless, discontented, tired, and lonely in that strange solitude which seemed to be growing wider and wider around him in rings of silence.  Men praised and lauded the great frieze; and he strove to respond, to believe them—­to believe in the work and in himself—­strove to shake off the terrible discouragement invading him, lurking always near to reach out and touch him, slinking at his heels from street to street, from room to room, skulking always just beyond the shadows that his reading lamp cast.

Without envy, yet with profound sadness, he stood and faced the splendour of Querida’s canvas.  He had gone to Querida and taken him by both of his thin, olive-skinned hands, and had praised the work with a heart clean of anything unworthy.  And Querida had laughed and displayed his handsome teeth, and returned compliment for compliment....  And Neville had seen, on his dresser, a photograph of Valerie, signed in her long, girlish, angular hand—­“To Jose from Valerie”; and the date was of mid-winter.

Christmas came; he sent Valerie some furs and a note, and, before he went to Aiken to spend the holidays with his father and mother, he tried to get her on the telephone—­tried half a dozen times.  But she was either busy with business or with pleasure somewhere or other—­and he never found her at home; so he went South without hearing from her.

[Illustration:  “Querida had laughed ... and returned compliment for compliment.”]

After he arrived, it is true, he received from her a cigarette case and a very gay and frank Christmas greeting—­happy and untroubled apparently, brimming with gossip, inconsequences, and nonsense.  In it she thanked him for his letter and his gift, hoped he was happy with his parents, and expressed an almost conventional desire to see him on his return.