He drew a long breath of the icy air, coarse with the wild perfume of the prairie.

No, his temperament needed a subtiler atmosphere than this, rarer essence than mere brutal freedom The East, the Old World, was his proper sphere for self-development.

He would go as soon as he could command the means, leaving all clogs behind.

ALL?
His idle thought balked here, suddenly; the sallow forehead contracted sharply, and his gray eyes grew in an instant shallow, careless, formal, as a man who holds back his thought.

There was a fierce warring in his brain for a moment.