The window was on the corner, overlooking the junction of three great
highways of humanity: Twenty-third Street, with its booming crosstown cars,
stretching away into the darkness on either hand; Broadway, forking off to
the left, its distances merging into a hot glow of yellow radiance;
Fifth Avenue, branching into the north with its desolate sidewalks oddly
patterned in areas of dense shadow and a cold, clear light. Over the way
the park loomed darkly, for all its scattered arcs, a black and silent
space, a well of mystery....

It was late, quite late; the clock in front of Dorlon's (he craned his neck
to see), made the hour one in the morning; the sidewalks were comparatively
deserted, even the pillared portico of the Fifth Avenue Hotel destitute of
loungers. A timid hint of coolness, forerunning the dawn, rode up on the
breeze.

He looked up and away northward, for many minutes, over housetops stenciled
black against the glowing sky, his gaze yearning into vast distances of
space, melancholy tingeing the complexion of his mind. He fancied himself
oppressed by a vague uneasiness, unaccountable as to cause, unless....

From the sublime to the ridiculous with a vengeance, his thoughts tumbled.
Gone the glamour of Romance in a twinkling, banished by rank materialism.
He could have blushed for shame; he got slowly to his feet, irresolute,
trying to grapple with a condition that never before in his existence had
he been called upon to consider.

He had just realized that he was flat-strapped for cash. He had given his
last quarter to the cabby, hours back. He was registered at a strange
hotel, under an assumed name, unable to beg credit even for his breakfast
without declaring his identity and thereby laying himself open to