I left Florence Quincy’s cautioning myself that i had come back to do
a particular thing: the particular book was planned and waiting for
tranquillity in order to be written. But already New York pounded on
the door of my mind. New York teased that tomorrow would be time enough
for work; today, if I knew what was what, should be given up to talk.
And talk--until I had heard all that they had to say--would consist of
fragmentary information about Eva Litchfield’s marriage. I had growled
to Florence that I wondered why I had come back; and she had jeered
that we had come here of our own free will, and that we all came back
and would try to come back from the grave. It was true. New York is a
contagious disease.