"Twelfth!" she gasped. "Twelfth? It's Eugene!"
She tried to stop him; her fingers merely caught in the grille-work that shut off the empty shaft.
Why do we go mad? Why do we kill ourselves? Why is there more insanity and more self-murder to-day than ever before? It is because, under existing conditions, the relief that comes from action is so largely shut off. How has humanity contrived to endure so well the countless ills of countless ages? Because society has been, in general, loose-knit, so that each unit in it has had room for some individual play. What so increases and intensifies the agonies of to-day? The fact that society has a closer and denser texture than ever before; its finespun meshes bind us and strangle us. Indignation ferments without vent; injury awaits with a wearing impatience the slow and formal infliction of a corporate punishment; self-consciousness paralyzes the quick 'and free action that is the surest and sometimes the only relief.
McDowell was in his office alone. A single light was burning in the room, and nothing remained but the drawing down of a desk-top and the quenching of the light before locking the door from the outside and calling the day's work over. He looked up as Ogden entered.
"Oh, it's you. I haven't seen you for some time past." He used the dubious intonation that marks a half-smothered enmity.
"Yes, it's I. And you won't see me for some time to come. You see me this once."
He stood with his hand on the back of a chair. He made no motion to seat himself, but he was unmistakably planted there to remain. McDowell therefore resumed his own accustomed chair beside his desk.
"Well, what is it?" he asked.
He scrutinized Ogden with an undisguised curiosity. The young man's voice sounded strange in his ears; his face had an expression which made it almost the face of an acquaintance now first met.
"I have come to square with you," began Ogden, slowly. He passed an unconscious hand along the varnished back of the chair; it was a chair in yellow oak, whose frame was light but strong, and whose seat was of cane.