Hazlitt quickened his walking. He was confronted with the intricate business of forgiving himself. He felt shame, but shame was something that could be walked off. Faster ... with an amorous mumble soothing him and the hurt. After all, was it so important? Yes ... no. Forgive himself, but not too quickly. He walked.... Words made circles in his head--abject and sorrowful circles about the dream of the virginal one. A man with a curious smile stopped in front of him to light a pipe. Hazlitt paused and looked at the street. He would take a car. His legs were tired. The wind and snow put out the match of the man who was lighting a pipe. Hazlitt looked at him. What was he smiling about? We're all in the snow ... all without secrets in the snow. Hail fellows of the street ... Curious, he should feel sad for a man who was smiling on a street corner. Tiredness. The man was cursing the snow good-humoredly. Suddenly the pipe was lighted and the man seemed to have forgotten it. His eyes gleamed for an instant across Hazlitt's face, and with an abrupt nod of recognition the man passed on. Walking swiftly, bent forward, vanishing behind a flurry of snow. Hazlitt peered down the track for his car. He wondered how the man knew him. It pleased his vanity to be recognized by people he couldn't place. It showed he was somebody. Yes, George Hazlitt, attorney-at-law. He recalled ... they had met once in an office. A newspaperman--editor or something. Probably looking for news. Hazlitt was glad he had been recognized. The man would think of him as he walked on in the snow--of his victory in the courtroom and his future. That was part of life, to be thought of and envied by others. Beside him a newsboy raised a shout ... "Extra! Pauline Pollard acquitted!..." People would read about it in their homes. His name. Wonder who he was. A voice across the street answered, "Extra! Germans bombard Paris!..." The damned Huns! Why didn't America put an end to their dirty business by rushing in? He stepped into the warm street-car and sat staring moodily out of the window. He was a part of life, but there was something beyond--a--mystery. "Extra!..." He should have bought a paper. There was the newspaper fellow again, still walking swiftly, bent forward, staring into the snow.... Oh, yes, Erik Dorn. He had met him once.... The car passed on. CHAPTER IV Erik Dorn laughed as he walked swiftly through the snow in the street. It seemed to him he had been laughing incessantly for a week, and that he would continue to laugh forever. His thought played delightedly with his emotions ... a precocious child with new fantastic toys. He was in love. A laughable business! Five months of uncertainty had preceded the laugh. An irritated, inexplicable moodiness as if the shadow of a disease had come into his blood. On top of this moodiness a violence of temper, a stewing, cursing, fuming about. A five months' quarrel with his wife....