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236 sweet faith—and that was why he hated them—why he pitied and despised them.

Faith—love—friendship! To the devil with the sniveling, weak-kneed lot of 'em! They spelled happiness—and happiness did not exist—and—

Happiness!

The thought, the word, recurred to his brain with maddening persistency. It would not budge.

Happiness.

"Why, happiness is behind that lighted window!" The idea came to him—almost the conviction.

But what happiness? And whose?

He speculated who might be up there, in the garret room squeezed by the flat roof. He tried to picture to himself what might be shimmering behind that golden flash.

Perhaps it was Fedor Davidoff, the little hunchbacked Russian tailor, with the fat, golden-haired, sloe-eyed wife. He might be celebrating the coming of freedom to his beloved Russia. Or he might be sitting up late to finish some piece of work—to earn extra money. For his wife was expecting a child. He had three already, curly-haired, straight-backed. But he wanted more—"children make happiness, eh?" he used to say.