Page:Episodes-before-thirty.djvu/317

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I had noticed his friendship with Mrs. Lowry, a Christian, well-known figure in the social world; and, being the confidant of both parties, I had done all I could to encourage a marriage that promised happiness and success. In due course, Bishop Potter, of New York, officiated. The ceremony was performed in the drawing-room, and just before it began, James Speyer came up to me, took the beautiful links out of his cuffs, and handed them to me. "I should like you to have these," he said, "as a little memento." I have them still.

A few months later, just before I was thirty, I found myself in a second-class cabin in a Cunarder, with my savings in my pocket. Old Louis, who followed me a year or two later, came down to see me off. I was glad when the Statue of Liberty lay finally below the sea's horizon, but I shall never forget the thrill of strange emotion I experienced when I first saw the blue rim of Ireland rise above the horizon a few days later. A shutter dropped behind me. I entered a totally new world. Life continued to be mouvementée, indeed, one adventure succeeding another, and ever with the feeling that a chance letter, a chance meeting might open any morning a new chapter of quite a novel kind; but my American episodes were finished.

Of mystical, psychic, or so-called "occult" experiences, I have purposely said nothing, since these notes have sought to recapture surface adventures only.