He caught a breath of lilac scent from a closed florist's shop.

He looked up to the skies, over the housetops, faintly blue, growing clearer every moment.
Almost he fancied that he looked again into the eyes of this strange girl, recalled her unexpected yet delightful frankness, which to him, with his love of abstract truth, was, after all, so fascinating.

Oh, there was much to be said for this Western world!--much to be said for those whose part it was to live in it! Yet, never so much as during that brief night walk through the silent streets, did he realize how absolutely unfitted he was to be even a temporary sojourner in this vast city.

What would they say of him if they knew,--of him, a breaker of their laws, a guest, and yet a sinner against all their conventions; a guest, and yet one whose hand it was which would strike them, some day or other, the great blow! What would she think of him?
He wondered whether she would realize the truth, whether she would understand.
Almost as he asked himself the question, he smiled.

To him it seemed a strange proof of the danger in which a weaker man would stand of passing under the yoke of this hateful Western civilization.