Edwin turns to trying to talk Joe out of Australia. “Why not go to June in San Francisco?” he asks. “You want a family? You have one. San Francisco is just as wild as Australia.”

This is advice Joe will take eventually, but only after Australia fails to magically manifest his dreams.

June writes to Edwin:

I would not say so to Mother but I am afraid [Joe] is not sound in his mind . . . I do not say positive insanity but a crack that way . . . which I fear runs more or less thro’ the male portion of our family myself included . . . I recd a letter from Asia pleading in Joe’s behalf & excusing his conduct, putting it down as sensitiveness and innate modesty, but I am afraid my surmise is nearer the truth . . .

I am sorry you & Asia are not on more loving terms—but I feel Asia has a little of the family taint . . .

The actual subject of this letter is the fact that June owes Edwin nineteen hundred dollars, some of which he has lost in mining speculation and some of which he has spent on a house, but none of which he can repay. He’s explaining his profligate and unsanctioned use of Edwin’s money. Not guilty by reason of hereditary insanity.

iii

In September, Edwin and Mary return to New York after an absence of nearly a year. Edwin finds the war simultaneously present—few untouched by loss and grief—and strangely absent. The city is as full of gaiety as it’s ever been. The theaters and restaurants are thriving, the bars boisterous, the streets bustling. In the midst of death we are in life, Edwin thinks. Although he once enjoyed this same disconnect, it now seems unfathomable that things can simply be going on as before.

The Prince and Princess move back into their rooms in the Fifth Avenue Hotel, with the Princess now in Parisian gowns and the royal child with a Parisian nanny. One of the splendors of the Fifth Avenue Hotel is its bathrooms. Claw-footed tubs and flushing toilets! Edwin goes immediately to fill the basin with cold water and soap his cheeks for a shave. He’s only half done scraping his face when he hears a cry from Mary. She’s at the bathroom door, holding a letter in her hand. Her sweet face has gone white, her eyes big and shining like glass. “Oh, Ned,” she says. “Oh, my darling! Your friend Dick is dead.”