His dress, too, showed the strain.

While his collar and neckwear were properly looked after, and his face was clean-shaven, other parts of his make-up, especially his shoes and hat, were much the worse for wear.
This, then, was the man who, with thoughts intent on his last and most degrading makeshift, was forging his way up Second Avenue, the mantilla--the veriest film of old Salamanca lace--pressed into a small wad and stuffed in his inside pocket.
And now, while we follow him on his way up-town, it may be just as well for us to note that up to this precise moment our devil-may-care, still rather handsome Mr.Dalton, with the drooping eyelids and cold, hard lips, had entirely failed to grasp the idea that, in so far as public and private morals were concerned, he had in the last thirty minutes fallen to the level of a common sneak-thief.
His own reasoning, in disproof of this theory, was entirely characteristic of the man.

While the pawning of one's things was of course unfortunate and might occasion many misunderstandings and much obloquy, such an act was not necessarily dishonest, because many gentlemen, some of high social position, had been compelled to do the same thing.

He himself, yielding to force of circumstances, had already pawned a good many things--his wife's first, and then his own--and would do it again under similar conditions.

That the article carefully hidden in his pocket belonged to neither one of them, did not strike him as altering the situation in the slightest.