He stared fixedly at the water. He wondered what made him do these things, lose control of his tongue. It wasn't his first offence; nor, surely, his last. An unnerving suggestion, that last! He asked himself how bad a man had to feel before jumping down there and ending it all. It happened often enough. You saw it in the papers. 3 Welding's jewellery store occupied the best corner on the proper side of State Street. In its long series of show window's, resting on velvet of appropriate colours, backed by mirrors, were bracelets, lockets, rings, necklaces, 'dog-collars' of matched pearls, diamond tiaras, watches, chests of silverware, silver bowls, cups and ornaments, articles in cut glass, statuettes of ebony, bronze and jade, and here and there, in careless little heaps, scattered handfuls of unmounted gems--rubies, emeralds, yellow, white and blue diamonds, and rich-coloured semi-precious stones. But all this without over-emphasis. There were no built-up, glittering pyramids, no placards, no price-tags even. There was instead, despite the luxury of the display, a restraint; as if it were more a concession to the traditions of sound shop-keeping than an appeal for custom. For Welding's was known, had been known through a long generation, from Pittsburg to Omaha. Welding's, like the Art Institute, Hooley's Theatre, Devoe's candy store, Field's buses, Central Music Hall, was a Chicago institution, playing its inevitable part at every well-arranged wedding as in every properly equipped dining-room. You couldn't give any one you really cared about a present of jewellery in other than a Welding box. Not if you were doing the thing right! Oh, you _could_, perhaps.... And Welding's, from the top-booted, top-hatted doorman (such were not common in Chicago then) to the least of the immaculately clad salesmen, was profoundly, calmly, overpoweringly aware of its position. Before the section of the window that was devoted to rings stood Henry. About him pressed the throng of early-afternoon shoppers--sharp-faced women, brisk business men, pretty girls in pretty clothes, messenger boys, loiterers and the considerable element of foreign-appearing, rather shabby men and women, boys and girls that were always an item in the Chicago scene. Out in the wide street the traffic, a tangle of it (this was before the days of intelligent traffic regulation anywhere in America) rolled and rattled and thundered by--carriages, hacks, delivery wagons, two-horse and three-horse trucks, and trains of cable-cars, each with its flat wheel or two that pounded rhythmically as it rolled. And out of the traffic--out of the huge, hive-like stores and office-buildings, out of the very air as breezes blew over from other, equally busy streets, came a noise that was a blend of noises, a steady roar, the nervous hum of the city. But of all this Henry saw, heard, nothing; merely pulled at his moustache and tapped his cane against his knee.