d him for his clumsiness. He cherished a mad desire to return to
Van Derwater's rooms and force an apology by violence. He had expected
criticism, reproach, even abuse; but that any man should brand him
treasonous! . . .

He spat into the gutter, and a sound that was almost a snarl escaped
from his throat. He stopped, irresolute, and the wound in his head
burst into a violent pain. He leaned against a post until the agony
had passed, and once more he made for Broadway. At the sight of his
face glowing-red with passion, girls tittered and men drew aside.

Crossing the road, he stood to let a street-car pass, its covered
wheels giving an odd resemblance to an armoured car, when an extra
burst of light made him look up.

It was the gum advertisement again.

CHAPTER XXI.

A NIGHT IN JANUARY.

I.

Next morning, when Selwyn left his hotel, a few desultory snowflakes
were falling through the air, and moistly expiring on the asphalt
pavements. It lacked a few minutes of nine, and the thousands who man
the machinery of New York's business were hurrying to their appointed
places. People who had to catch trains were hurrying to stations; and
people who had nowhere to go were hurrying still faster. Taxi-cabs
were rushing people across the city; and other taxi-cabs were rushing
them back again. The overhead railway was rattling and roaring its
noisy way; the surface cars were clattering and clanging through the
traffic; and every half-minute the subways were belching up cargoes of
toilers into the open air.

New York was in a hurry.

All night the great engine of a million parts had lain idle, but
morning was the signal that every wheel must leap into action again,
driven by the inexhaustible army of human souls. Hurry, noise,
clamour, greed, fever, progress. . . . Another day had dawned!

Crossing Broadway to reach Fourth Avenue, Selwyn could not repress a
smile at the stricken glory of the great Midway. The illuminated signs
that had searched the secret crevices of the mind, and had aided the
iridescent foam seen from the harbour, looked tawdry and vulgar, like a
circus on a rainy morning. Even the theatres, with their sign-borne
superlatives, were garish and illusion-shattering. There was almost an
apologetic air about the bill-boards proclaiming their nightly offering
to be the 'biggest ever.'

Selwyn began to resent that word 'biggest.' One of the sad things
about America is that she starte