Adams had never as yet decided in his own mind, but there were moments when, in listening to stories of the masculine freedom in which Kemper lived, he felt inclined to acknowledge that the force, whatever it was, had spent itself in wind.  In a profession the man would inevitably have become a figure, he thought now with a touch of friendly humor—­in law or medicine he would have gone in for the invincible “grand style,” and the picturesqueness of his person would have served to swell the number of his clients.  It was a shabby turn of fortune, Adams admitted, which in supplying Kemper with a too liberal bank account, had made of him at the same time a driver of racing motor cars instead of the ornament of a more distinguished field.  There were compensations doubtless, and he wondered if in this instance they had centred in the fascinations of an operatic Juliet?

Upon reaching his office he found that he was late for an interview he had appointed with a famous Russian revolutionist, who had promised him an article for the Review.  It was the time of the month when they were making up the forthcoming number, and he was kept late over a discussion of the leading paper, which, owing to the sudden death of a literary personage of distinction, he had been compelled to replace at the last moment.

His office was a small, dingy room on the eighth floor of a building in Union Square, and his privacy was guarded by the desks of his secretaries placed directly beyond the threshold.  These assistants were young men of considerable promise, he liked to think—­college graduates and temperamental hero-worshippers, who adored him with an ardour which he found at once disconcerting and ridiculous.  He had been used, however, to so little personal appreciation in his life that he had grown of late to look forward, with pathetic eagerness, to the hearty morning greeting of his fellow-workers—­for one of whom, a fresh-coloured youth named Baldwin, he had come to cherish a positive affection.  It was stimulating to feel that somewhere he counted for something in his bodily presence—­even though the scene of his importance was confined to the little smoke-stained office among the chimney pots.

When, at the end of the day, he came out into the street again and crossed to Fifth Avenue for his accustomed walk, he found that the snow had ceased to fall, though a bitter wind was scattering the heavy drifts in a succession of miniature blizzards.  After the heated office the tempestuous gale struck agreeably upon his face, and his mind, which he had kept closely upon his work until the hour of release, began almost with difficulty to detach itself from the fortunes of the Review.  In the effort to compel rather than seek distraction, he put his imagination idly on the scent of the people in the street—­ran down in fancy the history of a woman in a purple velvet gown and a bedraggled petticoat, catalogued an athletic young Englishman who tugged at his heels a reluctant bulldog, and wove a tragic romance around a pretty girl in a shabby coat who stood in a staring ecstasy before a window filled with imitation jewels.  Then two men, smoking cigars, came up suddenly behind him and he amused himself with guessing at the brand of the tobacco, which had a remarkably fragrant aroma.