And in this setting of energy and activity, towering city life and sea breezes, I met Gidding again, whom I had last seen departing into Egypt to look more particularly at the and the temples of the first and second dynasty at Abydos. It was at a dinner-party, one of those large that welcome interesting visitors. It wasn't, of course, I who was the centre of interest, but a French portrait painter; I was there as just any guest. I hadn't even perceived Gidding until he came round to me in that precious gap of masculine that ensues upon the departure of the ladies. That gap is one of the rare opportunities for conversation men get in America.  
"I don't know whether you will remember me," he said, "but perhaps you remember Crete—in the sunrise."
 
"And no end of talk afterwards," I said, grasping his hand, "no end—for we didn't half finish. Did you have a good time in Egypt?"
 
"I'm not going to talk to you about Egypt," said Gidding. "I'm through with ruins. I'm going to ask you—you know what I'm going to ask you."
 
"What I think of America. It's the same question. I think everything of it. It's the stepping-off place. I've come here at last, because it matters most."
 
"That's what we all want to believe," said Gidding. "That's what we want you to tell us."
 
He reflected. "It's immense, isn't it, immense? But—— I am afraid at times we're too disposed to forget just what it's all about. We've got to be reminded. That, you know, is why we keep on asking."
 
He went on to question me where I had been, what I had done, what I made of things. He'd never, he said, forgotten our two days' gossip in the Levant, and all the wide questions about the world and ourselves that we had then and left so open. I soon found myself talking very freely to him. I am not a ready or abundant talker, but Gidding has the of my ideas. He is America to my Europe, and at his touch all that has been hanging in concentrated solution in my mind comes crystallizing out. He has to a degree that directness and which is the American quality. I tried to explain to his solemnly nodding head and intelligent eyes just exactly what I was making of things, of the world, of humanity, of myself....
 
It was an odd theme for two men to attempt after dinner, servants about them, their two faces a little flushed by wine and good eating, their keen interest masked from the others around them by a gossiping affectation, their hands going out as they talked for matches or cigarette, and before we had gone further than to fling out a few intimations to each other our was interrupted by our host up and by the gener............