ave to hurry
about it. He could take all the time he liked.

For the present, he was getting a queer sort of comfort out of what
would ordinarily be labeled the discomforts of his surroundings: the
fierce dry heat of the car, the smells--that of oranges was perhaps the
strongest of these--the raucous persistence of the train butcher hawking
his wares; and, most of all, in the very density of the crowd.

This is one of the comforts that many a member of the favored,
chauffeur-driven, servant-attended class lives his life in ignorance of,
the nervous relief that comes from ceasing, for a while, to be an
isolated, sharply bounded, perfectly visible entity, and subsiding,
indistinguishably, into a mere mass of humanity; in being nobody for a
while. It was a want which, in the old days before his marriage, Rodney
had often, unconsciously, felt and gratified. He had enjoyed being
herded about, riding in crowded street-cars, working his way through the
press in the down-town streets during the noon hour.

He was no more conscious of it now, but it was distinctly pleasant to
him to be identified for the conductor merely by a bit of blue
pasteboard with punch marks in it, stuck in his hat-band.

The pleasant torpor didn't last long, because presently, the rhythmic
thud of the wheels began singing to him the same damned tune that had
dogged his footsteps earlier that morning: "I'm all alone, you're all
alone; come on, let's be lonesome together."

This was intolerable! To break it up, he bought a magazine from the
train-boy and tried to read. But the story he lighted on concerned
itself with a ravishingly beautiful young woman and an incredibly
meritorious young man, and worked itself out, cleverly enough to be
sure--which made it worse--upon the assumption that all that was needed
for their supreme and permanent happiness was to get into each other's
arms, which eventually they did.

Rose had been in his arms last night!

So the scorching treadmill round began again. But at last sheer physical
exhaustion intervened and he fell heavily asleep. He didn't waken until
the conductor took up his bit of pasteboard again, shook him by the
shoulder, and told him that he'd be at his destination in five minutes.

Presently, in the hotel, he locked his door, opened the window and sat
down to think.

CHAPTER XIII

FREDERICA'S PARADOX

Two days later, at half past eight in the morning, he walked in on
Frederica at breakf