And so, amid the farewells of a tender, protesting family, he got off, leaving Edith in the midst of one of her monologues.

There was a telegram in New York saying that Aleck Van Camp would join him in three days, at the latest.  Hambleton disliked the club and left it, although his first intention had been to put up there.  He picked out a modest, up-town hotel, new to him, for no other reason than that it had a pretty name, The Larue.  Then he began to consider details.

The day after his arrival was occupied in making arrangements for his boat.  He put into this matter the same painstaking buoyancy that he had put into a dull business for twelve years.  He changed his plans half a dozen times, and exceeded them wholly in the size and equipment of the little vessel, and in the consequent expense; but he justified himself, as men will, by a dozen good reasons.  The trig little sail-boat turned out to be a respectable yacht, steam, at that.  She was called the Sea Gull.  Neat in the beam, stanch in the bows, rigged for coasting and provided with a decent living outfit, she was “good enough for any gentleman,” in the opinion of the agent who rented her.  Jim was half ashamed at giving up the more robust scheme of sailing his own boat, with Aleck; but some vague and expansive spirit moved him “to see,” as he said, “what it would be like to go as far and as fast as we please.”  While they were about it, they would call on some cousins at Bar Harbor and get good fun out of it.

The idea of his holiday grew as he played with it.  As his spin took on a more complicated character, his zest rose.  He went forth on Sunday feeling as if some vital change was impending.  His little cruise loomed up large, important, epochal.  He laughed at himself and thought, with his customary optimism, that a vacation was worth waiting twelve years for, if waiting endowed it with such a flavor.  Jim knew that Aleck would relish the spin, too.  Aleck’s nature was that of a grind tempered with sportiness.  Jim sat down Sunday morning and wrote out the whole program for Aleck’s endorsement, sent the letter by special delivery and went out to reconnoiter.

The era of Sunday orchestral concerts had begun, but that day, to Jim’s regret, the singer was not a contralto.  “Dramatic Soprano” was on the program; a new name, quite unknown to Jim.  His interest in the soloist waned, but the orchestra was enough.  He thanked Heaven that he was past the primitive stage of thinking any single voice more interesting than the assemblage of instruments known as orchestra.

Hambleton found a place in the dim vastness of the hall, and sank into his seat in a mood of vivid anticipation.  The instruments twanged, the audience gathered, and at last the music began.  Its first effect was to rouse Hambleton to a sharp attention to details—­the director, the people in the orchestra, the people in the boxes; and then he settled down, thinking his thoughts.  The past, the future, life and its meaning, love and its power, the long, long thoughts of youth and ambition and desire came flocking to his brain.  The noble confluence of sound that is music worked upon him its immemorial miracle; his heart softened, his imagination glowed, his spirit stirred.  Time was lost to him—­and earth.