faded away as the one indomitable, evil
passion of the man leaped into life within him, and lashed and roweled
him with excitement. His world resolved itself to a round green table,
columns of tri-colored chips, and five ever-changing cards that came
and went and came again before his tired eyes like the changing,
weaving colors of the kaleidoscope. Midnight struck, then one o'clock,
then two, three, and four. Still his passion rode him like a hag,
spurring the jaded body, rousing up the wearied brain.

Finally, at half-past four, at a time when Condy was precisely where he
had started, neither winner nor loser by so much as a dime, a round of
Jack-pots was declared, and the game broke up. Condy walked home to
the uptown hotel where he lived with his mother, and went to bed as the
first milk-wagons began to make their appearance and the newsboys to
cry the morning papers.

Then, as his tired eyes closed at last, occurred that strange trick of
picture-making that the overtaxed brain plays upon the retina. A swift
series of pictures of the day's doings began to whirl THROUGH rather
than BEFORE the pupils of his shut eyes. Condy saw again a brief
vision of the street, and Blix upon the corner waiting to cross; then
it was the gay, brisk confusion of the water-front, the old mate's
cabin aboard the whaleback, Chinatown, and a loop of vermilion cloth
over a gallery rail, the golden balcony, the glint of the Stevenson
ship upon the green Plaza, Blix playing the banjo, the delightful and
picturesque confusion of the deserted Chinese restaurant; Blix again,
turning her head for him to fasten her veil, holding the ends with her
white-kid fingers; Blix once more, walking at his side with her trim
black skirt, her round little turban hat, her yellow hair, and her
small dark, dancing eyes.

Then, suddenly, he remembered the promise he had made her in the matter
of playing that night. He winced sharply at this, and the remembrance
of his fault harried and harassed him. In spite of himself, he felt
contemptible. Yet he had broken his promises to her in this very
matter of playing before--before that day of their visit to the Chinese
restaurant--and had felt no great qualm of self-reproach. Had their
relations changed? Rather the reverse for they had done with
"foolishness."

"Never worried me before," muttered Condy, as he punched up his
pillow--"never worried me before. Why should it worry me now--worry me
like the