In the late afternoon of that same hot day the crabbed little bell on Madame Finibald's door snapped to let in a tired, dusty youth, whose dejected face was so flushed, one's thought at sight of him turned at once on sunstroke. He leaned wearily over the counter and asked a few questions, at which madame's liver seemed so shaken she could not keep a hold on her good manners. At the height of her voice she began berating all the world, and one absent person. Fraisier tried to calm her, with vague, soothing motions of his hands patting down the air. When she subsided enough for him to be heard, he pointed to a long tail of shining hair in the window, and spoke again, growing redder, if possible, than before--so red that his eyes watered, and he had to shade them a moment, leaning his elbows on the counter. She unhitched the hair, shaking it brutally. He put out his hands in remonstrance. She flung it down before him with a forbidding proposition and a deep snort of malice. Meekly he emptied his purse on the counter, unfolding the bills, spreading out the silver and lucky pieces to count, reserving only for himself a crumpled ticket. She watched him with gleeful, avaricious eyes. After computation, he rose without breath of argument and went down the street to pawn his watch and studs and cigarette-case, returning solvent. He left with a rather unsightly parcel in his hand; the cover was burst in more than one place. Madame Finibald had not been so particular as she sometimes was in the selection of her wrapping-paper. He had no overcoat and no pocket large enough to put his prize in; he was forced to hold it, conscious how it was heavy and soft and its contents gleamed through the holes. He got home at dark, reporting to his landlady with his back to the light. He wanted nothing to eat: there were lamps and voices in the dining-room. He could not go to bed, worn out as he was: on the porch below his window was singing and picking of strings. He went forth into the fields. At last, beyond all sounds but the summer's own, he sank on the grass. He did not look up once at the stars, but lay sprawling with his forehead on his crossed arms, and let his heart torture itself at its own good leisure. He drank deeper and deeper of its dark bitterness, forcing himself recklessly to it, reaching a sort of desperate drunkenness. It seemed to his inexperience there could be nothing worse at any time in this life to taste.