seeing goodness knows what burnt-up
visions therein, waiting to hear a footfall, and an entreating voice at
the key-hole; apologies and tears perhaps, and promises of amendment.
Now it was after twelve o'clock, darkness everywhere and silence. Time
and again a policeman's tramp or the hasty, light footfall of adventure
went by. So he stood up at last sour and vindictive--

"She would have her fling. She wouldn't give in. She doesn't care a
tinker's curse what I say. . . . Let her go to Jericho," said he, and
he tramped up to bed.

In his bedroom he did not trouble to get a light. He undressed in a
bitterly savage mood and rolled into bed, only to jump out again in
sudden terror, for there was some one in it. It was his wife. He lay
down with a hazy, half-mad mind. Had he wronged her? Was she more
amenable than he had fancied? She had not gone out at all--or, had she
gone out, sneaked in again by the back door and crept noiselessly to
bed. . . .?

He fell asleep at last on the tattered fringe of a debate--Had he
wronged her? or had she diddled him again?

A GLASS OF BEER

It was now his custom to sit there. The world has its habits, why
should a man not have his? The earth rolls out of light and into
darkness as punctually as a business man goes to and from his office;
the seasons come with the regularity of automata, and go as if they
were pushed by an ejector; so, night after night, he strolled from the
Place de l'Observatoire to the Font St. Michel, and, on the return
journey, sat down at the same Cafe, at the same table, if he could
manage it, and ordered the same drink.

So regular had his attendance become that the waiter would suggest the
order before it was spoken. He did not drink beer because he liked it,
but only because it was not a difficult thing to ask for. Always he
had been easily discouraged, and he distrusted his French almost as
much as other people had reason to. The only time he had varied the
order was to request "un vin blanc gommee," but on that occasion he had
been served with a postage stamp for twenty-five centimes, and he still
wondered when he remembered it.

He liked to think of his first French conversation. He wanted
something to read in English, but was timid of asking for it. He
walked past all the newspaper kiosks on the Boulevard, anxiously
scanning the vendors inside--they were usually very stalwart, very
competent females, who looked as though they had outgrown their