logically disposed of and bravely trampled under foot, had sent him out
through the soft slush of late November to a library which had none of
the books he most wanted. It is fair to analyze Anthony as far as he
could analyze himself; further than that it is, of course, presumption.
He found in himself a growing horror and loneliness. The idea of eating
alone frightened him; in preference he dined often with men he detested.
Travel, which had once charmed him, seemed at length, unendurable, a
business of color without substance, a phantom chase after his own
dream's shadow.

--If I am essentially weak, he thought, I need work to do, work to do.
It worried him to think that he was, after all, a facile mediocrity,
with neither the poise of Maury nor the enthusiasm of Dick. It seemed a
tragedy to want nothing--and yet he wanted something, something. He knew
in flashes what it was--some path of hope to lead him toward what he
thought was an imminent and ominous old age.

After cocktails and luncheon at the University Club Anthony felt better.
He had run into two men from his class at Harvard, and in contrast to
the gray heaviness of their conversation his life assumed color. Both of
them were married: one spent his coffee time in sketching an
extra-nuptial adventure to the bland and appreciative smiles of the
other. Both of them, he thought, were Mr. Gilberts in embryo; the number
of their "yes's" would have to be quadrupled, their natures crabbed by
twenty years--then they would be no more than obsolete and broken
machines, pseudo-wise and valueless, nursed to an utter senility by the
women they had broken.

Ah, he was more than that, as he paced the long carpet in the lounge
after dinner, pausing at the window to look into the harried street. He