n weariness of the body. You could see
that weariness in the tired frown of the black brows, the narrowing
of the dark eyes, the downward tug of the lips. Wrinkles of stagnation
had began to creep into forehead and cheeks--wrinkles that no amount
of gymnasium, of club life, of careful shaving, of strict hygiene
could banish.

Through the west windows the slowly changing hues of gray, of
mulberry, and dull rose-pink blurred in the sky, cast softened lights
upon those wrinkles, but could not hide them. They revealed sad
emptiness of purpose. This man was tired unto death, if ever man were
tired.

He yawned, sighed deeply, stretched out his hand and took up a bit
of a model mechanism from the table, where it had lain with other
fragments of apparatus. For a moment he peered at it; then he tossed
it back again, and yawned a second time.

"Business!" he growled. "'Swapped my reputation for a song,' eh?
Where's my commission, now?"

He got up, clasped his hands behind him, and walked a few times up and
down the heavy rug, his footfalls silent.

"The business could have gone on without me!" he added, bitterly.
"And, after all, what's any business, compared to _life_?"

He yawned again, stretched up his arms, groaned and laughed with
mockery:

"A little more money, maybe, when I don't know what to do with what
I've got already! A few more figures on a checkbook--and the heart
dying in me!"

Then he relapsed into silence. Head down, hands thrust deep in
pockets, he paced like a captured animal in bars. The bitterness
of his spirit was wormwood. What meant, to him, the interests and
pleasures of other men? Profit and loss, alcohol, tobacco, women--all
alike bore him no message. Clubs, athletics, gambling--he grumbled
something savage as his thoughts turned to such trivialities. And into
his aquiline face came something the look of an eagle, trapped, there
in that eagle's nest of his.

Suddenly the Master of _Niss'rosh_ came to a decision. He returned,
clapped his hands thrice, sharply, and waited. Almost at once a door
opened at the southeast corner of the room--where the observatory
connected with the stairway leading down to the Master's apartment on
the top floor of the building--and a vague figure of a man appeared.

The light was steadily fading, so that this man could by no means be
clearly distinguished. But one could see that he wore clothing quite
as conventional as his master's. Still, no more than the Mas