I could have gone that day, had Hanks commanded it. The trust which he imposed in me was my reward for always having obeyed him without question, and in my state of mind that morning, between walking from his office to the steamer for years of absence and staying as I was, I should have chosen the former alternative. I wanted to get away. The only place where I could find even the shadow of contentment was at my desk. There imperative tasks filled a mind at other times occupied with unwholesome brooding. I seemed to move through waste places, with no object to catch the eye and thought and to drive away the consciousness of my unhappiness. Even my walk on Fifth Avenue had been abandoned lest at any moment Penelope might pass me with Talcott at her side; Miss Minion's had become a place of terror, for by ill chance Tom Marshall had been introduced to Talcott and he had developed a habit of dropping in on me and telling me what he had said to Bert Talcott and what Bert Talcott had said to him. He seemed to think that Talcott had conferred knighthood on him by knowing him. There were times, even, when I had gravely considered abandoning my chosen career and retiring to a bucolic life of loneliness in the valley. And at other times, into such depths of despondency was I plunged that I could seriously consider abandoning self entirely and devoting the remainder of my wrecked life to doing good, though just what trend my saintliness would take I never determined. In monkish days, I suppose, I should have gone into a cloister. But Hanks aroused me. Of course he did not know my thoughts. With his clear eyes he did not see that my life was a ruin. He regarded me rather as a fortunate man to whom opportunities were opening wonderfully well, and I accepted his view; though I was sure that I was taking a road which led to nowhere, yet travelling was better than sitting still. Looking at Hanks, I forgot that he had a wife and four accomplished daughters over in Jersey, and I said that I should take life as he took it, with a cynical interest in the game, with all thought on the run of the cards and little for personal winnings.