Then he stepped back with the air of an unimportant person
making way for his betters to pass before him, while Canby's
eyes fixed themselves glassily upon the shabby old doorway
through which an actual, breathing Wanda Malone was to come.

But he was destined not to see her appear in that expectant
frame. Twenty years before--though he had forgotten it--in a
dazzling room where there was a Christmas tree, he had uttered a
shriek of ecstatic timidity just as a jingling Santa Claus began
to emerge from behind the tree, and he had run out of the room
and out of the house. He did exactly the same thing now, though
this time the shriek was not vocal.

Suffocating, he fled up the aisle and out into the lobby. There
he addressed himself distractedly but plainly:

"Jackass!"

Breathing heavily, he went out to the wide front steps of the
theatre and stood, sunlit Broadway swimming before him.

"Hello, Canby!"

A shabby, shaggy, pale young man, with hot eyes, checked his
ardent gait and paused, extending a cordial, thin hand, the
fingers browned at the sides by cigarettes smoked to the bitter
end. "Rieger," he said. "Arnold Rieger. Remember me at the old
Ink Club meetings before we broke up?"

"Yes," said Canby dimly. "Yes. The old Ink Club. I came out for