"The deuce, but she was pretty!" he excused himself. "And those eyes--"

Suddenly he checked himself. There had been more than the eyes; more
than the pretty face! Why had the girl paused in front of the window?
Why had she looked at him so intently, as though on the point of speech?
The smile and the flush left his face as these questions came to him and
he wondered if he had failed to comprehend something which she had meant
him to understand. After all, might it not have been a case of mistaken
identity? For a moment she had believed that she recognized him--then,
seeing her mistake, had passed swiftly down the street. Under ordinary
circumstances Howland would have accepted this solution of the incident.
But to-night he was in an unusual mood, and it quickly occurred to him
that even if his supposition were true it did not explain the pallor in
the girl's face and the strange entreaty which had glowed for an instant
in her eyes.

Anyway it was none of his business, and he walked casually to the door.
At the end of the street, a quarter of a mile distant, a red light
burned feebly over the front of a Chinese restaurant, and in a
mechanical fashion his footsteps led him in that direction.

"I'll drop in and have a cup of tea," he assured himself, throwing away
the stub of his cigar and filling his lungs with great breaths of the
cold, dry air. "Lord, but it's a glorious night! I wish Van Horn
could see it."

He stopped and turned his eyes again into the North. Its myriad stars,
white and unshivering, the elusive play of the mysterious lights
hovering over the pole, and the black edge of the wilderness beyond the
river were holding a greater and greater fascination for him. Since