"You're right," he went on, "I can't stand this racket much longer--this
work and worry; we are living beyond our means; we'll have to slow up,
get down to a more sane basis." The words came from his blue lips in
jerky disjointed sentences. "What's the use, it's too much of a
struggle! I do a thousand things I don't want to do, shady things in my
practice, things no reputable lawyer should stoop to, and all to make a
few dollars to throw away. I tell you, I am sick of it! Why can't we be
as other people, reasonable and patient--that's the thing, to be
patient, and just bide our time. We can't live like millionaires on my
income, what's the use of trying--I tell you we are fools!"

"Are matters so desperate with us?" Evelyn asked. "And is it all my
fault?"

"I can't do anything to pull up unless you help, me," Langham said.

"Well, are matters so desperate?" she repeated.

He did not answer her at once.

"Bad enough," he replied at length and was silent.

A sense of terrible loneliness swept over him; a loneliness peopled with
shadows, in which he was the only living thing, but the shadows were
infinitely more real than he himself. He had the brute instinct to hide,
and the human instinct to share his fear. He poured himself a drink.
Evelyn watched him with compressed lips as he drained the glass. He drew
himself up out of the depths of his chair and began to tramp the floor;
words leaped to his lips but he pressed them back; he was aware that
only the most intangible barriers held between them; an impulse that