"I don't know what you mean, Anne."
"He's gone mad on social injustice, just as mad as any capitalist has on accumulating money. He's lost all sense of individual values. He's a machine, a machine for fighting for his own theory."
Roger's lips set. It brought the squareness of his chin into terrible relief. "Roger's the same stuff, floating around in the clouds with those blue eyes and that square chin." Anne's body began to quiver, but she kept her eyes steady.
"Let's not talk about it. We don't agree."
"Evidently not. There don't seem to be many things we do agree about any more."
Anne tried to speak gayly. Otherwise the tears would come. But she sounded like Hilda Mitchell, pecking at a tragedy with her silly giggle.
"Not many," Roger said shortly. "I've got to go back to the office and I may be late. Don't wait up for me."
He kissed Anne as usual, and as usual she went as far as the door with him. But long after his step had died she stood looking out over the city's lights, lonelier than she had ever been in all her life.
She remembered coming home with Roger once, very late, on just such a night. They had sat hand in hand, far in the prow of the almost empty ferry, and Anne's head had rested on his shoulder. She was tired after a happy day, one of the old picnics they had found time to take. She had been glad of the lights coming nearer and they had traced the row up their own hill. The twinkling lights had beckoned them to the warm, human comfort of others. Now they burned on indifferent to her, lighting the way for hurrying crowds, the creeping, inimical confusion of the world. The twinkling lights lit the ways of men and men were cruel.
Anne went in and sat down before the fire, without turning on the lamp. It was so still she could hear her own thoughts moving about her. Gradually, from the rustling crowd, one emerged: