The Pace that Kills by Edgar Saltus

New York meanwhile, in its effeminateness, had forgotten the snow, and was listening to the sun. And the day after the return from Aiken, as Roland, in accordance with an agreement of which the _locus sigilli_ had a kiss for token, went down to knock at Mr. Dunellen's office door, the sky was as fair as it had been in the South. Yet to him it was unobtrusive.

His mind was occupied with fancies that had a birth, a little span of life, and which in passing away were succeeded by others as ephemeral as themselves -- thoughts about nothing at all that came and went unnoticed: a man he had met in Corfu, and whom a face in the street recalled; the glisten of silk in a window that took him back to Japan; -- but beneath them was a purpose settled and dominant, a resolution to trick Fate and outwit it -- one which, during the journey from Aiken, had so possessed him that, in attending to the wants of Mrs. Metuchen or in ministering to Justine, at times he had been quasi-somnambulistic, at others wholly vague. But now, as he gave his card to an office-boy, to all outward intent he was confident and at ease; he picked up a paper and affected to lose himself in its columns. Presently the boy returned, and he was ushered into the room which he had previously visited. On this occasion Mr. Dunellen was not seated, but standing, his back to the door.