frame felt light, as if he could have spurned
the pavement with a foot, and have leaped the roadway at an easy bound.
He thought of young Hotspur, and 'methinks it were an easy leap to pluck
bright honour from the pale-faced moon.' He walked erect with his chin
in the air, and regarded the men and women who passed him with a strange
sense of being able to understand them all. There seemed to be a story
in every face, and he felt vaguely and yet positively that he could read
it if he chose. He found himself for the first time in Oxford Street
without knowing either by what route he had reached it or what was the
name of the thoroughfare. The crowds, the lights, the movement and the
din of traffic were in themselves an intoxication. It gave him a sense
of strength to be alone among them. Then all his thoughts trembled into
a sudden swimming laxity, and his mood changed to one of deep sadness.
He set himself to analyse an inward dumb reproach which filled him--to
ask a reason for it--to trace it to some source. It seemed to form
itself definitely on a sudden, and his winnings began to gall him
bitterly. He had never gambled before, and now he felt the passion of
greed into which he had been betrayed disgusting. He was ashamed of
having played at all, and still more ashamed of the callousness of
triumph in which he had walked away with his gains. He had pitied his
associates. He had seen the misery of their estate quite clearly. And
yet he had stooped to profit by their folly, and slattern wives and
dirty little neglected children would be cold and hungry because of
him before a week was over. He would return the money on Monday, every
penny. He might have to pinch himself for a week or two, but he would do
it.

His mood sank lower and lower, and self-reproach grew at once more
insistent and more urgent He felt homesick, and the populous street was
like a desert. All the people who had seemed so warmly near to him were
aloof and cold. He would have welcomed any companionship. The ebbing
forces of the wine left him comfortless.

In his complete ignorance and inexperience he supposed the pint of port
to have had no effect on him. This up-and-down play of the emotions
was not what he had read of as the result of wine on an unaccustomed
drinker. His step was steady, his eye was clear, there was no confusion
in his thoughts. It would be a perfectly safe thing to have another
glass of wine and then go home. If he had been asked