men.

A shop of this kind, like any other institution where people are
compelled by force of circumstances to work together whether the weather
be fair or foul, or the mood grave or gay, can readily become and
frequently does become a veritable hell. Human nature is a subtle,
irritable, irrational thing. It is not so much governed by rules of
ethics and conditions of understanding as a thing of moods and
temperament. Eugene could easily see, philosopher that he was, that
these people would come here enveloped in some mist of home trouble or
secret illness or grief and would conceive that somehow it was not their
state of mind but the things around them which were the cause of all
their woe. Sour looks would breed sour looks in return; a gruff question
would beget a gruff answer; there were long-standing grudges between one
man and another, based on nothing more than a grouchy observation at one
time in the past. He thought by introducing gaiety and persistent, if
make-believe, geniality that he was tending to obviate and overcome the
general condition, but this was only relatively true. His own gaiety was
capable of becoming as much of a weariness to those who were out of the
spirit of it, as was the sour brutality with which at times he was
compelled to contend. So he wished that he might arrange to get well and
get out of here, or at least change his form of work, for it was plain
to be seen that this condition would not readily improve. His presence
was a commonplace. His power to entertain and charm was practically
gone.

This situation, coupled with Angela's spirit of honest conservatism was
bad, but it was destined to be much worse. From watching him and
endeavoring to decipher his moods, Angela came to suspect something--she
could not say what. He did not love her as much as he had. There was a
coolness in his caresses which was not there when he left her. What
could have happened, she asked herself. Was it just absence, or what?
One day when he had returned from an afternoon's outing with Carlotta
and was holding her in his arms in greeting, she asked him solemnly:

"Do you love me, Honeybun?"

"You know I do," he asseverated, but without any energy, for he could
not regain his old original feeling for her. There was no trace of it,
only sympathy, pity, and a kind of sorrow that she was being so badly
treated after all her efforts.

"No, you don't," she replied, detecting the hollow ring in what he said.
H