accident, he had recognized her for what she was. . . . He could not sit through the rest of the play. Its artificiality, its inane falsehood disgusted him. He went out into the brilliantly lighted streets and walked furiously up and down, up and down, and on. And the men and women in the streets seemed small and mechanical, utterly devoid of the vital principle he had discerned in his wife's eyes, voice, gesture, as she played her part. They were just a crowd, mincing and strutting, bound together by nothing but the capacity to move, to place one leg before another and proceed from one point to another of the earth's surface. He had that in common with them, but nothing else: nothing that bound him to them. (So he told himself, and so truly he thought, for he was comparing a moment of real experience with a series of impressions made on him by his surroundings.) He walked up and down the glittering streets, streaked with white and yellow and green and purple lights, and the commotion in him waxed greater. . . . When he returned to the theater Matilda was gone, and had left no message for him. He found her in her bed, with the light on, reading. She had undressed hastily and her clothes were littered about the room in an untidiness most unusual with her. She stuffed what she was reading under her pillow. "You didn't wait for me," he said. "No. I didn't want to see anybody. I rushed away before the end." "Anything wrong?" "I hate the theater. I hate it all, the people in it, the blinding lights, the painted scenery, the audience, oh! the audience! I don't ever want to go near it again. It's just playing and pretending. . . ." "The piece was certainly nothing but a pretence at drama." "Oh! Don't talk about it." "But I want to know what has upset you." "I can't tell you. I don't know myself. I only know that I'm miserable, miserable. Just let me be."