IV
When he awoke it was eleven o’clock, and he drew himself a cool bath, splashing around in it with much of the exultation of the night before.
“I have thought too much these twenty years,” he said to himself. “It’s thinking that makes people old.”
It was hotter than it had been the day before, and as he looked out the window the dust in the street seemed more tangible than on the night before. He breakfasted alone downstairs, wondering with the incessant wonder of the city man why fresh cream is almost unobtainable in the country. Word had spread already that he was home, and several men rose to greet him as he came into the lobby. Asked if he had a wife and children, he said no, in a careless way, and after he had said it he had a vague feeling of discomfort.
“I’m all alone,” he wen
