conversed with freaks and monsters of all sorts upon terms of friendly
confidence. He reported their different theories of themselves to his
family with the same simple-hearted interest that he criticised the song
and dance artists of the vaudeville theatres. He became an innocent but
by no means uncritical connoisseur of their attractions, and he surprised
with the constancy and variety of his experience in them a gentleman who
sat next him one night. Boyne thought him a person of cultivation, and
consulted him upon the opinion he had formed that there was not so much
harm in such places as people said. The gentleman distinguished in
saying that he thought you would not find more harm in them, if you did
not bring it with you, than you would in the legitimate theatres; and in
the hope of further wisdom from him, Boyne followed him out of the
theatre and helped him on with his overcoat. The gentleman walked home
to his hotel with him, and professed a pleasure in his acquaintance which
he said he trusted they might sometime renew.

All at once the Kentons began to be acquainted in the hotel, as often
happens with people after they have long ridden up and down in the
elevator together in bonds of apparently perpetual strangeness. From one
friendly family their acquaintance spread to others until they were,
almost without knowing it, suddenly and simultaneously on smiling and
then on speaking terms with the people of every permanent table in the
dining-room. Lottie and Boyne burst the chains of the unnatural kindness
which bound them, and resumed their old relations of reciprocal censure.
He found a fellow of his own age in the apartment below, who had the same
country traditions and was engaged in a like inspection of the city; and
she discovered two girls on another floor, who said they received on
Saturdays and wanted her to receive with them. They made a tea for her,
and asked some real New Yorkers; and such a round of pleasant little
events began for her that Boyne was forced to call his mother's attention