Fred went softly into a corner and sat down...  Finally, after a while, Storch laid his book aside.  He gave one searching look at Fred’s face.

“Well, have you decided?” he asked, with calm directness.

Fred’s hands gave a flourish of resignation.  “Yes...  I’ll do it!” he answered in a whisper.

Storch picked up his book again and went on reading.  Presently he lifted his eyes from the printed page as he said: 

“We won’t have any more meetings here...  Things are getting a little too dangerous...  How soon will the job be finished?”

Fred rose, shaking himself.  “Within two weeks, if it is finished at all!”

He went close to Storch and put a hand upon his shoulder.  “You know every bitter thing ... tell me, why does a man love?”

Storch laughed unpleasantly.  “To breed hatred!”

Fred Starratt sat down again with a gesture of despair.

CHAPTER XX

From this moment on Fred Starratt’s existence had the elements of a sleepwalking dream.  He felt himself going through motions which he was powerless to direct.  Already Storch and his associates were allowing him a certain aloofness—­letting him set himself apart with the melancholy arrogance of one who had been chosen for a fanatical sacrifice.

Replying to Storch’s question regarding his plans, he said, decidedly: 

“I leave all that to you...  Give me instructions and I’ll act.  But I want to know nothing until the end.”

“Within two weeks...  Is there a special reason why ...”

“Yes ... a very special reason.”

Storch turned away.  But the next day he said, “Have you that card that Hilmer gave you?”

Fred yielded it up.

Storch smiled his wide, green smile.  Fred asked no questions, but he guessed the plans.  A spy was to be worked in upon Hilmer.

Every morning now Fred Starratt found a silver dollar upon the cluttered table at Storch’s.  He smiled grimly as he pocketed the money.  He was to have not a care in the world.  Like a perfect youth of the ancients marked for a sweet-scented offering to the gods, he was to go his way in perfect freedom until his appointed time.  There was an element of grotesqueness in it all that dulled the edge of horror which he should have felt.

Sometimes he would sally forth in a noonday sun, intent on solitude, but usually he craved life and bustle and the squalor of cluttered foregrounds.  With his daily dole of silver jingling in his pocket he went from coffeehouse to coffeehouse or drowsed an hour or two in a crowded square or stood with his foot upon the rail of some emasculated saloon, listening to the malcontents muttering over their draughts of watery beer.

“Ah yes,” he would hear these last grumble, “the rich can have their grog...  But the poor man—­he can get it only when he is dying ... providing he has the price.”