Antony Dart gazed at the fire. Here he sat warming himself in a loft with a beggar, a thief, and a helpless thing of the street. He had come out to buy a pistol—its weight still hung in his overcoat pocket—and he had reached this place of whose existence he had an hour ago not dreamed. Each step which had led him had seemed a simple, inevitable thing, for which he had apparently been responsible, but which he knew—yes, somehow he knew—he had of his own volition neither planned nor meant. Yet here he sat—a part of the lives of the beggar, the thief, and the poor thing of the street. What did it mean?
"Tell me," he said to the thief, "how you came here."
By this time the young fellow had fed himself and looked less like a wolf. It was to be seen now that he had blue-gray eyes which were dreamy and young.
"I have always been inventing things," he said a little huskily. "I did it when I was a child. I always seemed to see there might be a way of doing a thing better—getting more power. When other boys were playing games I was sitting in corners trying to build models out of wire and string, and old boxes and tin cans. I often thought I saw the way to things, but I was always too poor to get what was needed to work them out. Twice I heard of men making great names and fortunes because they had been able to finish what I could have finished if I had had a few pounds. It used to drive me mad and break my heart." His hands clenched themselves and his huskiness grew thicker. "There was a man," catching his breath, "who leaped to the top of the ladder and set the whole world talking and writing—and I had done the thing first—I swear I had! It was all clear in my brain, and I was half mad with joy over it, but I could not afford to work it out. He could, so to the end of time it will be his." He struck his fist upon his knee.
"Aw!" The deep little drawl was a groan from Glad.
"I got a place in an office at last. I worked hard, and they began to trust me. I—had a new idea. It was a big one. I needed money to work it out. I—I remembered what had happened before. I felt like a poor fellow running a race for his life. I knew I could pay back ten times—a hundred times—what I took."
"You took money?" said Dart.
The thief's head dropped.
"No. I was caught when I was taking it. I wasn't sharp enough. Someone came in and saw me, and there was a crazy row. I was sent to prison. There was no more trying after that. It's nearly two years since, and I've been hanging about the streets and falling lower and lower. I've run miles panting after cabs with luggage in them and not had strength to carry in the boxes when they stopped. I've starved and slept out of doors. But the thing I wanted to work out is in my mind all the time—like some machine tearing round. It wants to be finished. It never will be. That's all."
Glad was leaning forward staring at him, her roughened hands with the smeared cracks on them clasped round her knees.