this
room was a cobweb and that you were a huge spider, dangling on a
thread."

"And you were the fly, I suppose," Storch replied, sneeringly.

The next instant he had touched Fred's forehead gently, almost
tenderly, but his eyes glittered beneath their shaggy brows with an
insane ferocity... Fred took the glass. He was too ill to care much
one way or the other.

CHAPTER XVIII

Next morning Fred Starratt knew that he was too ill to rise. Then
everything became hazy. He had moments of consciousness when he sensed
Storch's figure moving in a sort of mist, flashing a green smile
through the gloom. He saw other figures, too---Helen Starratt, swathed
in clinging black; Hilmer, displaying his mangled thumb; Monet with
eyes of gentle reproach; and Ginger, very vague and very wistful.
There were times when the room seemed crowded with strange people who
came and went and gesticulated, people gathering close to the dim lamp
which Storch lighted at nightfall.

The visions of Monet were a curious mixture of shadow and reality.
Sometimes he seemed very elusive, but, again, his face would grow
clear to the point of dazzling brightness. At such moments Fred would
screen his eyes and turn away, only in the end to catch a melting
glimpse of Monet fading gradually with a gesture of resignation and
regret. But slowly the outlines of Monet grew less and less tangible
and the personality of Storch more and more shot through with
warm-breathed vitality, and the strange company that gathered at dusk
about the lamp became living things instead of shadows. Yet it took
him some time to realize that these nightly gatherings at Storch's
were composed of real flesh and blood.

At first he was content to lie in a drowse and listen to the
incoherent babblings of these nocturnal visitors, but, as he grew
stronger, detached bits of conversation began to impress themselves
upon him. These people had each some pet grievance and it remained for
Storch to pick upon the strings of their discontents with unerring
accuracy. At about eight o'clock every night the first stragglers
would drift in, reinforced by a steady stream, until midnight saw a
room stuffed with sweating humanity releasing their emotions in a
biting flood of protests. They protested at everything under the
sun--at custom, at order, at work, at play, at love, at life itself.
And Storch, for the most part silent, would sit with folded arms,
puffing at his pipe, a suggestion