THE HUNGRY GLEAM
He went up to the young lady and cried:
"Get under the sofa."
She obeyed.
"Lie quietly till some one comes or you'll get a bomb."
He went out, met no one either in the hall or on the staircase.
At the gate the porter stood, and Moshkin said:
"A strange lady that of yours!"
"How?"
"Doesn't behave very well—makes scenes. I should go up to her now, she's feeling bad."
"I can't go till I'm called."
"Well, you know best."
He went out. The hungry gleam grew dimmer in his eyes.
Moshkin tramped the streets a long while, and he recounted to himself stupidly and deliberately the events of that drawing-room, and pictured again the torn pictures and the lady under the sofa.
The dim water of the canal beckoned to him. The glimmering light of the sunset gave the surface a beautiful sadness, a soothing like the music sometimes made by an insane composer. Such also were the rough flags of the pier and such the dusty cobbles of the roadway, and such the stupid,
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