afternoon, very thirsty and dizzy, and rang for icewater, coffee, and
the Pittsburgh papers.

On the part of the hotel management, Paul excited no suspicion. There
was this to be said for him, that he wore his spoils with dignity and in
no way made himself conspicuous. Even under the glow of his wine he was
never boisterous, though he found the stuff like a magician's wand for
wonder-building. His chief greediness lay in his ears and eyes, and his
excesses were not offensive ones. His dearest pleasures were the
gray winter twilights in his sitting room; his quiet enjoyment of his
flowers, his clothes, his wide divan, his cigarette, and his sense of
power. He could not remember a time when he had felt so at peace with
himself. The mere release from the necessity of petty lying, lying every
day and every day, restored his self-respect. He had never lied for
pleasure, even at school; but to be noticed and admired, to assert his
difference from other Cordelia Street boys; and he felt a good deal
more manly, more honest, even, now that he had no need for boastful
pretensions, now that he could, as his actor friends used to say, "dress
the part." It was characteristic that remorse did not occur to him. His
golden days went by without a shadow, and he made each as perfect as he
could.

On the eighth day after his arrival in New York he found the whole
affair exploited in the Pittsburgh papers, exploited with a wealth of
detail which indicated that local news of a sensational nature was at a
low ebb. The firm of Denny & Carson announced that the boy's father had
refunded the full amount of the theft and that they had no intention of
prosecuting. The Cumberland minister had been interviewed, and expressed
his hope of yet reclaiming the motherless lad, and his Sabbath-school
teacher declared that she would spare no effort to that end. The rumor
had reached Pittsburgh that the boy had been seen in a New York hotel,
and his father had gone East to find him and bring him home.

Paul had just come in to dress for dinner; he sank into a chair, weak
to the knees, and clasped his head in his hands. It was to be worse than
jail, even; the tepid waters of Cordelia Street were to close over him
finally and forever. The gray monotony stretched before him in
hopeless, unrelieved years; Sabbath school, Young People's Meeting, the
yellow-papered room, the damp dishtowels; it all rushed back upon him
with a sickening vividness. He had the ol