Y., watching from a doorway the crowds of people hurrying or
loitering past him. He stood in a doorway near a corner that seemed to be
a public meeting place and from all sides came men and women who met at
the corner, stood for a moment in talk, and then went away together. Sam
found himself beginning to wonder about the meetings. In the year since he
had walked out of the Chicago office his mind had grown more and more
reflective. Little things--a smile on the lips of an ill-clad old man
mumbling and hurrying past him on the street, or the flutter of a child's
hand from the doorway of a farmhouse--had furnished him food for hours of
thought. Now he watched with interest the little incidents; the nods, the
hand clasps, the hurried stealthy glances around of the men and women who
met for a moment at the corner. On the sidewalk near his doorway several
middle-aged men, evidently from a large hotel around the corner, were
eyeing, with unpleasant, hungry, furtive eyes the women in the crowd.
A large blond woman stepped into the doorway beside Sam. "Waiting for some
one?" she asked, smiling and looking steadily at him, with the harried,
uncertain, hungry light he had seen in the eyes of the middle-aged men
upon the sidewalk.
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