Two evenings later Eden Whiteoak was sauntering along lower Fifth Avenue, one hand thrust in a pocket of a rather shabby tweed jacket, the other carrying a light stick. The change in him since he had disappeared from Jalna was remarkable. He had become thin almost to emaciation. His movements were still graceful, but the bright vigour of his carriage was gone. He seemed to progress only by an effort of the will, either because of bodily weakness or because of extreme despondency. If he had removed his hat, one would have seen that his hair, which had lain like a shining metal casque upon his head, was now rough and unkempt. Above the hollows in his cheeks two feverish spots burned where had been only a fresh glow. The beauty of his large blue eyes seemed accentuated. They still retained their peculiar unseeing expression, which sometimes disturbed one in company with him, and his lips still curved in their odd half-smile.
He was feeling himself near the end of his tether, and he was filled with a cynical dislike toward the moving mass of people who shared the pavement with him. This dislike, through some whim or perhaps some old resentment, was directed chiefly toward those of the opposite sex. And his aversion was at the moment centred upon their legs, which, like the sleek antennæ of insects, moved mechanically past him. It seemed to him that if ever he should look back upon this night of humid, unseasonable heat, he would recall it as being borne along its course by innumerable silk-clad legs.
Four girls approached abreast, wearing French heels and flesh-coloured stockings, their eight legs flashing in quick rhythm. "Beasts," he thought. "Beasts. Why
