CHAPTER II
If events spread themselves out fanwise from the past into the
future, then must the occurrences of the present exhibit
convergence toward some historical burning-point,—some focal
centre whereat the potential was warmed into the kinetic.
It was nearly a week after the events last narrated before I saw Maitland again, and then only by chance. We happened to meet in the Parker House, and, as he had some business pertaining to a case he was on, to transact at the Court House, I walked up Beacon Street with him. There is a book or stationery store, on Somerset Street, just before you turn down toward Pemberton Square. As we were passing this store, Maitland espied a large photographic reproduction of some picture.
“Let us cross over and see what it is,” he said. We di
