If one advantage showed forth from a situation that seemed, in general, not altogether promising, it was this: Raymond, hearing his native town commented upon unfavorably by his wife,—who was keen and constant in her criticisms,—began to defend it. It was one thing for the native-born to pick flaws; it was another when that ungracious work was attempted by a newcomer. And he meant not only to defend it, but to remain in it, though his wife had married him partly on the strength of his European predilections, and largely on the assumption that a good part of their married life would be spent abroad. He even began to wonder if he might not join in and help improve things. Like most of his fellow-townsmen, he regarded the city's participation in the late national festival as a great step in advance,—the first of many like steps soon to follow. The day after the Fair was late; but better to be late than never. Really, there was hope for the Big Black Botch. More and more he felt inclined to lessen still further its lessening enormity. After all, this town was the town of his birth: and a fundamental egoism cried out that it should be more worthy of him. He recalled a group of American women—Easterners—whom, during his first trip abroad, he had caught poring over the guest-book of a hotel in Sorrento. He was the last male arrival in a slow season; he seemed interesting and promising; evidently they had had hopes. "But," asked one of them, "how is it you are willing to register openly from such a town as that?"—and Raymond had felt the sting. "Such nerve, such bumptiousness!" he said to me in recalling that query some years later. But he did not add that he had tried to deliver any riposte. Instead he was now to make a belated return at home, where effort most counted. The years immediately to come were to be full of new openings and opportunities; in his own way, and under his peculiar handicaps, he was to try to take some advantage of them.