but money was not as yet an item of consideration. He was not
disabled. Physically he was more fit than he had ever been. The
delicate mechanism of his brain was unimpaired. He had no
bitterness--no illusions. His intellect was acute enough to suggest
that in the complete shucking off of illusions lay his greatest peril.
Life, as it faced him, the individual, appeared to be almost too grim
a business to be endured without hopes and dreams. He had neither. He
had nothing but moods.

He walked slowly down Granville Street in the blackest mood which had
yet come upon him. It differed from that strange feeling of terror
which had taken him unaware the night before. He had fallen easy prey
then to the black shadows of forlornness. He was still as acutely
aware of the barrier which his disfigurement raised between him and
other men. But with that morbid awareness there rose also now, for the
first time, resentment against the smug folk who glanced at him and
hurriedly averted their eyes. Slowly, by imperceptible degrees, as the
tide rises on a sloping shore, his anger rose.

The day was cold and sunny, a January morning with a touch of frost in
the air. Men passed him, walking rapidly, clad in greatcoats. Women
tripped by, wrapped in furs, eyes bright, cheeks glowing. And as they
passed, singly, in chattering pairs, in smiling groups, Hollister
observed them with a growing fury. They were so thoroughly insulated
against everything disagreeable. All of them. A great war had just
come to a dramatic close, a war in which staggering numbers of men had
been sacrificed, body and soul, to enable these people to walk the
streets in comfortable security. They seemed so completely unaware of
the significance of his disfigured face. It was simply a disagreeable
spectacle from which they turned with brief annoyance.