He was beginning to feel hungry, and the instinct of clinging to the relatively familiar drew him back to the Grand Central, where he knew he could lunch. As he entered he almost ran into a motherly-looking woman with a large yellowish face and blowsy gray hair, who wore a military felt hat with a band inscribed: "The Travellers' Friend." Vance went up to her, and her smile of welcome reassured him before he had spoken. He wanted to know of a nice quiet rooming house? Why, surely—that was just what she was there for. Country boy, she guessed? Well, why wouldn't he bring his things right round to Friendship House, just a little way off, down in East Fiftieth—she fumbled in her bag and handed him the address on a card with: "Bring your friend along—always room for one more," in red letters across the top. That, she explained, was the men's house; she herself was in the station to look after women and girls, and there was another house for them not far off; but Vance had only to mention her name to Mr. Jakes and they'd find a room for him, and give him the addresses of some respectable rooming houses. She shook his hand, beamed on him maternally, and turned away to deal with a haggard bewildered-looking woman who was saying: "My husband said he'd sure be at the station to meet me, but I can't find him, and the baby's been sick in the cars all night… ."

At Friendship House Vance was received by an amiable man with gold teeth, given supper of coffee and bread and butter, and assigned to a spotless cubicle. Not till he was falling asleep did it occur to him that Mrs. Tracy had a row of sweet peas in her own garden, and that a stuffed dove could hardly compensate her for the cost of his fortnight's board. He felt ashamed of his stupidity, and was haunted all night by the vision of the dreary smile with which she would receive his inappropriate tribute. Probably even Laura Lou would not know what to do with a stuffed dove. Yet that basket, with the lustrous bird so lightly poised on it, had seemed all poetry when he chose it… .