He felt a little sorry for them; but they were not in the least sorry for themselves. In Halesby their employment at a monstrous third-rate drapery store gave them a position of unusual distinction as arbiters of feminine fashions, and they would not have exchanged their distinguished anæmia for any other calling under the sun. In their profession this toxic pallor, as of sea-kale blanched in a cellar, was regarded as an asset. It was considered French. And did not their shortness of breath, upon the least exertion or emotion, cause their bosoms to rise and fall like those of the heroines of the serial fiction that they read, when they were not too tired, in the train? Edwin was not attracted by them any more than by the other couple: a pair of pupil teachers from an elementary school in one of the northern suburbs, who also dressed for the part that they were fulfilling in life, and wore spectacles as tokens of their studiousness. The instinct of sex had as yet scarcely asserted itself in him. He was a little curious about it, and that was all. Subconsciously, perhaps, it found expression in his anxieties about his personal appearance. He was beginning to take a considerable interest in what should or should not be worn, treating it more as a matter of abstract science than as one of practical politics; for he had few clothes beyond those in which he had left St. Luke’s, and was not likely to have any opportunity of extending his wardrobe until these were worn out. In those days the weekly called _To-Day_ had reached its most vigorous phase, and a column headed Masculine Modes was a matter of earnest consideration to Edwin every Thursday, when the paper appeared. In the spring, he decided, he would buy an overcoat with Raglan sleeves. The weekly authority, who styled himself “The Major,” was dead nuts on Raglan sleeves. Beneath this fashionable covering Edwin’s interior defects would be well hidden, and, given a natty red tie (_de rigueur_, said the Major, with the indispensable blue serge reefer suit) and a bowler hat with a curly, but not too curly, brim, he should be able to compete with the burly bank clerk as cynosure for the eyes of the pale young ladies in the “drapery” and a spectacle of awe for the studious pupil-teachers. II