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272 even get up as I came in. That was all right. We're never demonstrative.

"Hello," she said, "you back?" She dipped her pen into the ink-well.

"I'm back," I replied, and went over and raised the shade. A girl all in white and a young man carrying her coat went by, laughing intimately. Oh, well! What of it? I shrugged. I had my career, my affairs, Van de Vere's. "Want to come out somewhere interesting for dinner?" I suggested to Esther.

"Sorry," she said. "Can't possibly. Got to work."

I stared at Esther's back a moment in silence. Her restricted affection was inadequate tonight. I glanced around the room. It was unbeautiful in July. Where was the lure of it? Where had disappeared the charm of my life anyhow? Why should I be standing here, fighting a desire to cry? I could go out and find some one to dine with me. Of course—of course I could. I went to the telephone. Should it be Virginia, Rosa, Alsace and Lorraine, Flora Bennett? None—none of them! My heart cried out for somebody of my own tonight, upon whom I had a claim of some kind or other. I called Malcolm, my own older brother. We had grown a little formal of late. That was true. Never mind. I'd break through the reserve somehow. I'd draw near him. There was the bond of our parents. I wanted bonds tonight.

I got Malcolm's number at last. I was informed by a house-mate of his that my brother had gone to a reunion with his people for over the Fourth of July.