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acute to wonder. When he saw a man's name in her letters he felt
more sure of her and a little disdainful – he was always superior to
such things. But he still hoped that they would some day marry.
Meanwhile he plunged vigorously into all the movement and
glitter of post-bellum New York, entering a brokerage house, joining
half a dozen clubs, dancing late, and moving in three worlds – his
own world, the world of young Yale graduates, and that section of the
half-world which rests one end on Broadway. But there was always a
thorough and infractible eight hours devoted to his work in Wall
Street, where the combination of his influential family connection, his
sharp intelligence, and his abundance of sheer physical energy
brought him almost immediately forward. He had one of those
invaluable minds with partitions in it; sometimes he appeared at his
office refreshed by less than an hour's sleep, but such occurrences
were rare. So early as 1920 his income in salary and commissions
exceeded twelve thousand dollars.
As the Yale tradition slipped into the past he became more and
more of a popular figure among his classmates in New York, more
popular than he had ever been in college. He lived in a great house,
and had the means of introducing young men into other great houses.
Moreover, his life already seemed secure, while theirs, for the most
part, had arrived again at precarious beginnings. They commenced to
turn to him for amusement and escape, and Anson responded readily,
taking pleasure in helping people and arranging their affairs.
There were no men in Paula's letters now, but a note of
tenderness ran through them that had not been there before. From
several sources he heard that she had "a heavy beau," Lowell Thayer,
a Bostonian of wealth and position, and though he was sure she still
loved him, it made him uneasy to think that he might lose her, after
all. Save for one unsatisfactory day she had not been in New York for
almost five months, and as the rumors multiplied he became
increasingly anxious to see her. In February he took his vacation and
went down to Florida.
Palm Beach sprawled plump and opulent between the
sparkling sapphire of Lake Worth, flawed here and there by house-
boats at anchor, and the great torquoise bar of the Atlantic Ocean.
The huge bulks of the Breakers and the Royal Poinciana rose as twin
paunches from the bright level of the sand, and around them clustered
the Dancing Glade, Bradley's House of Chance, and a dozen modistes