“Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars With memory of the old revolt from awe, He reached a middle height, and at the stars Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank. Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank The army of unalterable law.” Lester Knapp’s heart swelled, shone bright, escaped out of its misery, felt itself one with the greatness of the whole. The words kept singing themselves in his ear ... “... he looked, and sank.” “... marched, rank on rank.” “The army of unalterable law.” The weighty, iron clang of the one-syllabled word at the end gave him a sensation of an ultimate strength somewhere. He leaned on that strength and drew a long free breath. His lean sallow face was lighted from within, and shone. He leaned far over his desk to hide this. He tried to think of something else, to put away from him this unmerited beauty and greatness. A man who is a failure in a business-office ought not for an instant to forget his failure. The least he can do is to be conscious of his humiliation at all times. But in spite of himself, his lips were curved in a sweet, happy smile. * * * * * Harvey Bronson glanced at him and felt irritated and aggrieved by his expression. “What call has a dead loss like Lester Knapp got to be looking so doggone satisfied with himself!” he thought. Chapter 5 That afternoon when at half-past four he stepped out on the street again, his long lean face was quite without expression. But it was not sallow. It was very white. He walked straight before him for a step or two, stopped short and stared fixedly into the nearest show-window, one of Jim McCarthy’s achievements. Mrs. Prouty happened to stand there too. She was looking at a two-hundred-dollar fur coat as tragically as though it were the Pearly Gates and she sinking to Gehenna. She dreamed at night about that fur coat. She wanted it so that she could think of little else. Unlike Mrs. Merritt, she had no resources of fine old Paisley shawls to fall back on. She looked up now, saw who had come to a stop beside her, and said, with the professional cordiality of a rector’s wife, “Oh, how do you _do_, Mr. Knapp,” and was not at all surprised when he did not answer or notice that she was there. Lester Knapp was notoriously absent-minded. It was one of his queer trying ways. He had so many. Poor Mrs. Knapp! But how brave she was about it. It was splendid to see a woman so loyal to a husband who deserved it so little. She looked sideways at him, forgetting for an instant her heartache over the coat. Mercy! What a sickly-looking man! Bent shoulders, hollow chest, ashy-gray skin ... no physique at all. And the father of a family! Such men ought not to be allowed to have children.