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world—until trifles made him tremble, a balmy magnetic inspector reduced him to cowardice, and Marcia’s wrangling of a magnificent opportunity for him made him run away from her. All that seemed ridiculous now. He had a profound sensation of being back on the right track.
    Despite what he owed to it, last night was already becoming hazy in his mind, as if it were an episode that hadn’t rightly belonged in his life—a cozy but detached bit of experience framed like a picture.
    People ought to have more experiences like that. Helped to break the “rhythm.”
    Grinning, he got up and leisurely bathed and shaved.
    He’d have breakfast downtown, he decided. Something a little special. Then amble over to the office about the time his regular lunch hour ended.
    Sun-warmed, lake-cooled air drifted through the open windows. He rediscovered forgotten pleasures in the stale business of selecting shirt and necktie.
    He jogged downstairs. This time the Carr Mackay in the mirror was just a jauntily reassuring counterpart, despite the circled eyes and the gray hairs here and there. He nodded casually.
    He’d half thought of permitting himself the luxury of taking a cab to the Loop. But as soon as he got outside he changed his mind. The sun and air, and the soft brown of the buildings, and the blue of lake and sky, and the general feel of muscle-stretching spring, when even old people crawl out of their holes, were too enticing. He felt fresh. Plenty of time. He’d walk.
    The city showed him her best profile. He found pleasure in sensing his own leisurely yet springy bodily movements, in inspecting, as if he were a god briefly sojourning on earth, the shifting scene and the passing people.
    If life had a rhythm, Carr thought, it had sunk to a lazy summer murmur from the strings.
    His mind idly played over last night’s events. He wondered if he could find Jane’s home again. An imposing enough place, all right. His guess about her being wealthy had hit the mark.
    But he felt no curiosity. Already Jane was beginning to seem like a girl in a dream. They’d met, helped each other, parted. A proper episode. Why did so many people want encounters to lead to something? Often we see people at their best the first time. Why belabor each fresh human contact until it becomes a dull acquaintanceship?
    Crossing the Michigan Bridge, he looked around idly fro the black motor-barge, but it was nowhere in sight. Far on the lake was dazzling. Next to the bridge, deck-hands were washing an excursion steamer. The skyscrapers rose up clean and gray. Cities could be lovely places at times. To crown it, he decided he’d drop into one of the big department stores and make some totally unnecessary purchase. Necktie, perhaps. Say, a new blue.
    Inside the store the crowd was thicker. Pausing by the door to spy out the proper counter, Carr had the faintest feeling of oppressiveness.
    So low as not to attract general attention, but distinctly audible, came a buzz. Three buzzes, close together. Then three more. Carr felt suddenly on the alert, now knowing why.
    A large man began to move toward the nearest door, not with obvious haste but not losing any time. Two aisles over another large man was heading in the same direction.
    Between them, a well-dressed gray-haired woman was making for the same door with steps a bit faster than seemed appropriate for her bulky figure.
    They converged on her. She hurried. They caught up with her at the door.
    Superficially, it might have been an aunt being accosted by two polite, solicitous nephews. No one else in the store seemed to realize that anything out of the ordinary was happening.
    But Carr noted the hand on the wrist, the gentle prod—it might have been a nephew’s love tap—the indignant look and the threat to start a scene on her part, the gentle “It’ll be a lot simpler if you don’t make a fuss” eyebrow-raising on theirs, the business of escorting her toward the mezzanine stairs—as if the nephews