Twenty-three years old, and already at the top of the heap! A rich man, and the associate of rich men. He would never be obliged to grind his teeth in lonesomeness. That shameless smile of his would be devastating among women. Women loved to be yanked down from their pedestals, and quite right, too. How charming to yank them down. Half the desirable women in the place were looking at Joe now. But _does_ Joe live? Wilfred asked himself. He has no feeling. That’s what makes him great. That’s what gives him such a power over everybody. He doesn’t care. That’s what gives him such a power over me—God damn him! I feel, and he does not. He lives his life, and I feel it for him, and curse my own impotence! It is feeling which makes me so ineffectual. Feelings . . . all kinds of feelings that lay hands on me and drag me back! Oh God! I wish I could be a soulless animal like Joe! . . . And yet . . . what’s the use of living a crowded life if you can’t realize it? After all, isn’t it more real to have the feeling than the substance . . . ? But down that path you soon begin to gibber! To hell with thought! I want the fleshpots! He perceived that Joe was aware of him, though he gave no sign of recognition. A certain increased amplitude appeared in Joe’s style. Wilfred sneered. It’s nuts to him to have me looking at him, he thought; the fellow of good family who has come to nothing, gazing with sickly envy at the street Arab who has risen to affluence! By God! I will not look at him again!—But he could not help himself. His eyes were dragged back. Meanwhile he sneered. Rotten little hooligan! He gets on because he’s got no conscience. If a decent man can’t get on in the world, so much the worse for the world! I don’t envy him his present company; millionaires and their hangers-on! Those fellows are dead inside; that’s why they like him. Even the warmth of a dung-heap is warmth! Scratch the pink skin and you’d find just a common, foul-minded Jew! Wilfred’s thoughts seared his breast. He looked away from Joe in a despairing effort to divert his mind; but the animated spectacle in which he had hitherto taken such pleasure, no longer had any meaning for him. When Joe and his party arose to leave, their course took them out beside Wilfred’s table. Wilfred kept his eyes down until they had passed; then raised them to that hateful-enviable back. The tall grace of Joe’s slim figure, so perfectly turned-out—he had put on a black soft hat, just enough out of the ordinary to emphasize his stylishness; the confident poise of his head; it seemed almost more than Wilfred could bear. Oh God! how I hate him! he thought; he poisons my being! Meanwhile the under voice was whispering: If I could only be him!