had already begun! The effect of this pantomime of the
eternal struggle for survivals which he at first beheld from a distance,
was to exaggerate appallingly the emptiness of the wide street, to
emphasize the absence of shoppers and vehicles; and a bluish darkness
lurked in the stores, whose plate glass windows were frosted in quaint
designs. Where were the police? It was not fear that Ditmar felt, he was
galvanized and dominated by anger, by an overwhelming desire for action;
physical combat would have brought him relief, and as he quickened his
steps he itched to seize with his own hands these foreigners who had
dared to interfere with his cherished plans, who had had the audacity to
challenge the principles of his government which welcomed them to its
shores. He would have liked to wring their necks. His philosophy, too,
was environmental. And beneath this wrath, stimulating and energizing it
the more, was the ache in his soul from the loss for which he held these
enemies responsible. Two days ago happiness and achievement had both been
within his grasp. The only woman--so now it seemed--he had ever really
wanted! What had become of her? What obscure and passionate impulse had
led her suddenly to defy and desert him, to cast in her lot with these
insensate aliens? A hundred times during the restless, inactive hours of
a sleepless night this question had intruded itself in the midst of his
scheming to break the strike, as he reviewed, word by word, act by act,
that almost incomprehensible revolt of hers which had followed so
swiftly--a final, vindictive blow of fate--on that other revolt of the
workers. At moments he became confused, unable to separate the two. He
saw her fire in that other.... Her sister, she had said, had been
disgraced; she had defied him to marry her in the face of that
degradation--and this suddenly had sickened him. He had let her go. What
a fool he had been to let her go! Had she herself been--! He did not
finish this thought. Throughout the long night he had known, for a
certainty, that this woman was a vital part of him, flame of his flame.
Had he never seen her he would have fought these strikers to their knees,
but now the force of this incentive was doubled. He would never yield
until he had crushed them, until he had reconquered her.

He was approaching one of the groups of strikers, and unconsciously he
slowed his steps. The whites of his eyes reddened. The great coat of
golden fur he wo