atter of courage--more soul, more daring, more awareness,
perhaps--something. When they saw her would they think he had made a
mistake, would they put him down as a fool? MacHugh was going with a
girl, but she was a different type--intellectual, smart. He thought and
thought, but he came back to the same conclusion always. He would have
to marry her. There was no way out. He would have to.

CHAPTER XXVIII

The studio of Messrs. Smite, MacHugh and Witla in Waverley Place was
concerned the following October with a rather picturesque event. Even in
the city the time when the leaves begin to yellow and fall brings a
sense of melancholy, augmented by those preliminaries of winter, gray,
lowery days, with scraps of paper, straws, bits of wood blown about by
gusty currents of air through the streets, making it almost disagreeable
to be abroad. The fear of cold and storm and suffering among those who
have little was already apparent. Apparent too was the air of renewed
vitality common to those who have spent an idle summer and are anxious
to work again. Shopping and marketing and barter and sale were at high
key. The art world, the social world, the manufacturing world, the
professional worlds of law, medicine, finance, literature, were bubbling
with a feeling of the necessity to do and achieve. The whole city, stung
by the apprehension of winter, had an atmosphere of emprise and energy.

In this atmosphere, with a fairly clear comprehension of the elements
which were at work making the colour of the life about him, was Eugene,
digging away at the task he had set himself. Since leaving Angela he had
come to the conclusion that he must complete the jointings for the
exhibition which had been running in his mind during the last two years.
There was no other way for him to make a notable impression--he saw
that. Since he had returned he had gone through various experiences: the
experience of having Angela tell him that she was sure there was
something wrong with her; an impression sincere enough, but based on an
excited and overwrought imagination of evil to follow, and having no
foundation in fact. Eugene was as yet, despite his several experiences,
not sufficiently informed in such affairs to know. His lack of courage
would have delayed him from asking if he had known. In the next place,
facing this crisis, he had declared that he would marry her, and because
of her distressed condition he thought he might as well do it