all it big; but the man in the secret realizes the
mockery and smiles."

Closer came the dark face. The black eyes, intense and flashing, held
the listener in their gaze.

"I said that even my pleasures seem to have deserted me. It is true. I
used to like to wander about the city, to see it at its busiest, to
loiter amid the hum and the roar and the ceaseless activity. I saw in it
then only friendly rivalry, like a hurdle race or a football
game--something pleasing and stimulating. Now it all affects me in just
the reverse way. I look beneath the surface, and my heart sinks to find
not friendly competition, but a battle, where men and women fight for
daily bread, where the weak are crowded and trampled upon by the strong.
In ordinary battle the maimed and the crippled are spared, but here they
still fight on. Mercy or quarter is unknown. Oh, it is ghastly! I used
to take pleasure in books, in the work of others; but even this
satisfaction has been taken from me--except such grim satisfaction as a
physician may feel at a _post mortem_. The very labor that made me a
success in literature caused me to be a dissector of things around me.
To learn how others attained their ends I must needs tear their work
apart and study the fragments. This habit has become a part of me. I
overlook the beauty of the product in the working of the machinery that
produced it. I watch the mixing of literary confections, served to the
reader so that upon laying down the book he may have a good taste in his
mouth. People themselves, those I meet from day to day, inevitably go
through the same metamorphosis. I see them as characters in a book.
Their foibles and peculiarities are grist for my mill. Everything,
everyone, when I appear, slips into the narrow confines of a printed
page. I can't even spare myself. Fragments of me can be had for a price
at any of the book-stalls. I've become public property--and with no one
to blame but myself."

The flow of speech halted. The speaker's face was so near now that the
girl could not avoid looking at it.

"Do you wonder," he concluded, "that I am not happy?"

The girl looked up. The two pairs of brown eyes met. Outwardly, she who
answered was calm; but in her lap the small hands were clasping each
other tightly, so that the blood had left the fingers.

"No, I do not wonder now," she answered simply.

"And you understand?"

"Yes, I--no, there's so much--Oh, take me home, please!" The sentence
ende