"I do not know."
"By the saints! And no more do I. Ain't you got a dime on you, mister? You could be giving it to me for car fare—; couldn't you now, mister?"
"Velee glad to let you have it."
He fished in his pocket. He drew out the coin and placed it in the man's outstretched hand. He watched the dirty fingers close eagerly over it. Suddenly the bloodshot eyes wavered suspiciously across his face. He saw the red flushed features twitch convulsively.
"Holy Mother!" The drunkard muttered thickly. "It's a heathen."
The dime slipped from between the inert fingers. It tinkled down onto the pavement, rolling with a little splash into a pool of water that lay a deep stain in the crevice of the broken asphalt.
For a moment he wondered placidly at the injustice of it; wondered that he should be made to feel the disgust of so revolting a thing as this drunkard.
He saw that the man had crossed himself with sudden fervor; he saw him shuffle uncertainly this way and that, as though the feet refused to carry the huge, bloated body. He stood watching the reeling figure until its dark outline was absorbed into the intenser darkness of a side street. The expression on his face never changing, he walked on.
He knew he had no right to be out at that time of the night; he knew he ought to be sitting at his desk in his comfortable little room, working out the studies which he had set himself. And yet he could not make up his mind to turn back.
Something drew him on into the blackness of the night; pulling him into it like a fated thing.