Page:Glitter (1926).pdf/145

 not see the glances that were trained on him as he passed, nor the people who started to speak to him but changed their minds, nor the heads that twisted to look after him curiously. Sorrow had made him alone, so that he saw no one and nothing.

When he reached the driveway that led to the rear of Brad's house he raised his eyes for the first time. The garage doors were shut. Brad's hands had shut them. And there were footprints across the snow to the house. Brad's footprints. Big oval holes, far apart, and so alive. . . so alive. . . they unnerved him, those oval holes. Just last night, a mere few hours ago, Brad had trod in them. ..

"And he knew," Jock thought. "He knew then what he was going to do." He could have wept. His face knotted into a hundred wrinkles, like the face of one who has run a long way, and between clenched teeth he muttered, "Why didn't I stay? Oh, God in heaven, why didn't I stay?"

He became aware of other things. Sunshine, garish-bright. Blue sky, and wind. Children playing on the street, and automobiles whizzing by, taking men to work and women to shop. People smiling. How could people smile? . . . so unimportant a life was. So few cared. The world went right on, no matter who lay still and cold in the house next door or the house across the street. A phrase Yvonne was fond of saying recurred to him: "Nothing matters very much." At times like this you knew nothing did. Men were born, and lived a little, and then lay still and cold. . . and people smiled and children with red sleds shouted for glee in the streets. ..

The thing on the door! A circle of flowers, and a trail of lavender gauze that danced up the wind like a sprite. It whipped his heart, that lavender gauze,