ty and youth and freshness. Yes, it had been as easy as
that for him. Just as it had been as easy for him to choose a nice and
pallid calling for expressing his work-day joy. He could have
understood a feeling of sinister passion for Sylvia Molineaux and
likewise he could have indulged it. But the snare was more subtle and
cruel than that. He was fated to feel the awe and mystery and beauty
of a rose-white love which he saw hourly trampled in the grime of the
streets. He had fancied once that love was a matter of give and take
... he knew now that it was essentially an outpouring ... that to love
was sufficient to itself ... that it could be without reward, or wage,
or even hope. He knew now that it could spring up without sowing,
endure without rain, come to its blossoming in utter darkness. And yet
he did not have the courage of these revelations. He felt their
beauty, but it was the beauty of nakedness, and he had no skill to
weave a philosophy with which to clothe them. If it had been possible
a year ago for him to have admitted so cruel a love he knew what he
would have done. He would have waited for her upon this selfsame
street corner and shot her down, turning the weapon upon himself. Yes,
he would have been full of just such empty heroics. Thus would he have
expressed his contempt and scorn of the circumstance which had tricked
him. But now he was beyond so conventional a settlement.

The huddled meetings about Storch's shattered lamp were no more, but
in small groups the scattered malcontents exchanged whispered
confidences in any gathering place they chanced upon. Fred Starratt
listened to the furtive reports of their activities with morbid
interest. But he had to confess that, so far, they were proving empty
windbags. The promised reign of terror seemed still a long way off.
There were moments even when he would speculate whether or not he was
being tricked into unsupported crime. But he raised the question
merely out of curiosity... Word seemed to have been passed that he was
disdainful of all plans for setting the trap which he was to spring.
But one day, coming upon a group unawares in a Greek coffeehouse on
Folsom Street, he caught a whispered reference to Hilmer. Upon the
marble-topped table was spread a newspaper--Hilmer's picture smiled
insolently from the printed page. The gathering broke up in quick
confusion on finding him a silent auditor. When they were gone he
reached for the newspaper. A record