ached the
centre of congestion it had deepened, had become more and more a guiding
influence. Since then, by day or by night, wherever he went, augmenting
or diminishing, it was constantly with him. And it was not with him
alone. Every human being with whom he came in contact was likewise
consciously or unconsciously under the spell. The crowds he had passed
on the streets were unthinkingly answering its guidance. The trolley
cars echoed its voice. It was the spirit of unrest--a thing ubiquitous
and all-penetrating as the air that filled their lungs--a subtle
stimulant that they took in with every breath.

Ben Blair arose and put on his hat. He had been sitting only a few
minutes, but he felt that he could not longer bear the inactivity. To do
so meant to think; and thought was the thing that to-night he was
attempting to avoid. Moreover, for one of the few times in his life he
could remember he was desperately lonely. It seemed to him that nowhere
within a thousand miles was another of his own kind. Instinctively he
craved relief, and that alleviation could come in but one way,--through
physical activity. Again he sought the street.

To some persons a great relief from loneliness is found in mingling with
a crowd, even though it be of strangers; but Ben was not like these. His
desire was to be away as far as possible from the maddening drone.
Boarding a street car, he rode out into the residence section, clear to
the end of the loop; then, alighting, he started to walk back. A full
moon had arisen, and outside the shadow-blots of trees and buildings the
earth was all alight. The asphalt of the pavements and the cement of the
walks glistened white under its rays. Loth to sacrifice the comparative
out-of-door coolness for the heat within, practically every house had
its group on the doorsteps, or scattered upon the narrow lawns.
Accustomed to magnificent distances, to boundless miles of surrounding
country, to privacy absolute, Ben watched this scene with a return of
the old wonder,--the old feeling of isolation, of separateness. Side by
side, young men and women, obviously lovers, kept their places,
indifferent to his observation. Other couples, still more careless, sat
with circling arms and faces close together, returning his gaze
impassively. Nothing, apparently, in the complex gamut of human nature
was sacred to these folk. To the solitary spectator, the revelation was
more depressing than even the down-town unrest