lence and orderliness of his apartment,
and the critical scrutiny of Flint. His real life was spent in a
world so remote from this familiar setting that he sometimes had the
mysterious sense of a living metempsychosis, a furtive passage from one
identity to another--yet the other as unescapably himself!

One humiliation he was spared: the desire to live never revived in
him. Not for a moment was he tempted to a shabby pact with existing
conditions. He wanted to die, wanted it with the fixed unwavering desire
which alone attains its end. And still the end eluded him! It would not
always, of course--he had full faith in the dark star of his destiny.
And he could prove it best by repeating his story, persistently and
indefatigably, pouring it into indifferent ears, hammering it into dull
brains, till at last it kindled a spark, and some one of the careless
millions paused, listened, believed...

It was a mild March day, and he had been loitering on the west-side
docks, looking at faces. He was becoming an expert in physiognomies: his
eagerness no longer made rash darts and awkward recoils. He knew now the
face he needed, as clearly as if it had come to him in a vision; and
not till he found it would he speak. As he walked eastward through the
shabby reeking streets he had a premonition that he should find it that
morning. Perhaps it was the promise of spring in the air--certainly he
felt calmer than for many days...

He turned into Washington Square, struck across it obliquely, and walked
up University Place. Its heterogeneous passers always allured him--they
were less hurried than in Broadway, less enclosed and classified than in
Fifth Avenue. He walked slowly, watching for his face.

At Union Square he felt a sudden relapse into discouragement, like a
votary who has watched too long for a sign from the altar. Perhaps,
after all, he should never find his face... The air was languid, and
he felt tired. He walked between the bald grass-plots and the twisted
trees, making for an empty seat. Presently he passed a bench on which a
girl sat alone, and something as definite as the twitch of a cord made
him stop before her. He had never dreamed of telling his story to a
girl, had hardly looked at the women's faces as they passed. His case
was man's work: how could a woman help him? But this girl's face was
extraordinary--quiet and wide as a clear evening sky. It suggested a
hundred images of space, distance, mystery, like ship