or-nothing scoundrel this
minute," he told himself. He would have liked to knock young Eastman
down; it would have delighted his soul to kick him; he would have
given a good deal to have had him at the top of the steps.

The weather was intensely warm. He heard his mother fling her bedroom
blinds wide open to catch all the air. The sky was clear, but all
along the northwest horizon was a play of lightning from a
far-distant storm.

Anderson lit another cigar. The night seemed to grow more and more
oppressive. When a breath of wind came, it was like a hot breath of
some fierce sentiency. A disagreeable odor from something was also
borne upon it. The odors of the flowers seemed in abeyance. The play
of blue-and-rosy light along the northwest horizon continued.
Anderson got a certain pleasure from watching it. Nature's
spectacularity diverted him, as if he had been a child, from his own
affairs, which seemed to give him a dull pain. Between the flashes he
asked himself why.

"It is just right," he told himself; "just what I desired. Why do I
feel this way?"

Presently he decided with self-deception that it was because of the
recent scene in the drug store. He remembered quite distinctly the
young man's gaze at the stout, blue-eyed girl. "What right had the
fellow to look at another girl after that fashion?" he said to
himself. Then it struck him suddenly as being perhaps impossible for
him ever to look at Charlotte in just that fashion. He thought with a
thrill of indignant pride that there was a maiden who would have the
best of love as her right. Then sitting there he heard a quick tread
and a trill of whistle as meaningless as that of a robin, and young
Eastman himself came alongside. He stopped before the gate.

"Hullo!" he said, suddenly.

"Hullo!" responded Anderson.

"Got a match?" said Eastman.

"Sure."

Eastman sprang up the steps until he came in reach of Anderson's
proffered handful of matches. "Hotter 'n blazes," he remarked, as he
scratched a match on his trousers leg.

"Hottest night of the season so far, I think," responded Anderson.

"I'm about beat out with it," said Eastman, lighting his cigar with
no difficulty in the dead atmosphere. He threw himself sprawling on
the step at Anderson's feet, without any invitation. "Whew!" he
sighed.

"It 'll be hotter than hades in the City to-morrow," he remarked,
after a moment's silence.

Anderson muttered an assent. He was considering as nervousl