The coffee house into which Fred Starratt had been led by Storch was choked with men and the thick odor of coffee and fried ham. To a man who had eaten sparingly for days the smell of food was nauseating. Storch ordered coffee for himself and a bowl of soup for Fred. This last was a good choice in spite of the fact that for a moment Fred felt instinctive rebellion. These pale, watery messes were too suggestive of Fairview. But in the end the warm fluid dissipated his weakness and he began to experience a normal hunger.
Storch finished his cup of coffee and wiped a dark-brown ooze from his upper lip with a paper napkin.
"Better take a slice of bread or two," he advised Fred, "and then call it quits. You'll feel better in the long run. A starved stomach shouldn't be surprised with too much food."
Fred obeyed. He could see that this man understood many things.
Gradually the crowd thinned. Soon only Fred and Storch were left at the particular table that they had chosen. Stragglers came and went, but still Storch made no move to go, and Fred was equally inactive. He felt warm and comfortably drowsy and, on the whole, quite content. The waiter cleared away the empty dishes and then discreetly ignored them. Fred fell to studying his reflection in the polished mirror running the length of the room. He had to acknowledge that he looked savage, with his hair long and untidy and a bristling, sunburnt beard smothering his features. And suddenly, in the intensity of his concentration, he felt a swooning sense of nonexistence, as if his inner consciousness had detached itself someway from the egotism of the flesh and stood apart, watching… He was recalled by Storch's voice. He shuddered slightly and turned his face toward his questioner.
"I didn't hear what you said," escaped him.
Storch leaned forward. "I was asking what you were doing … up north in the mountains during December. Only a desperate man or a fool would take a chance like that… And I can see you're not a fool… There aren't any prisons up that way that I know of."
"Prisons! What do you mean?"
"You've escaped from somewhere."
"How do you know?"