I
HE awoke to stretch cheerfully as he listened to the sparrows,
then to remember that everything was wrong; that he
was determined to go astray, and not in the least enjoying the
process. Why, he wondered, should he be in rebellion? What
was it all about? "Why not be sensible; stop all this idiotic
running around, and enjoy himself with his family, his business,
the fellows at the club?'' What was he getting out of
rebellion? Misery and shame—the shame of being treated as
an offensive small boy by a ragamuffin like Ida Putiak! And
yet— Always he came back to "And yet.'' Whatever the
misery, he could not regain contentment with a world which,
once doubted, became absurd.
Only, he assured himself, he was "through with this chasing
after girls.''
By noontime he was not so sure even of that. If in Miss
McGoun, Louetta Swanson, and Ida he had failed to find the
lady kind and lovely, it did not prove that she did not exist.
He was hunted by the ancient thought that somewhere must
exist the not impossible she who would understand him, value
him, and make him happy.
