He was ashamed of the fact that very simple and honest people usually distrusted him; that he had been cruel, often, to those who had sunk their personalities in him--several girls, and a man here and there through college, that he had been an evil influence on; people who had followed him here and there into mental adventures from which he alone rebounded unscathed.
Usually, on nights like this, for there had been many lately, he could escape from this consuming introspection by thinking of children and the infinite possibilities of children--he leaned and listened and he heard a startled baby awake in a house across the street and lend a tiny whimper to the still night.

Quick as a flash he turned away, wondering with a touch of panic whether something in the brooding despair of his mood had made a darkness in its tiny soul.

He shivered.

What if some day the balance was overturned, and he became a thing that frightened children and crept into rooms in the dark, approached dim communion with those phantoms who whispered shadowy secrets to the mad of that dark continent upon the moon....
***** Amory smiled a bit.
"You're too much wrapped up in yourself," he heard some one say.

And again-- "Get out and do some real work--" "Stop worrying--" He fancied a possible future comment of his own.
"Yes--I was perhaps an egotist in youth, but I soon found it made me morbid to think too much about myself." ***** Suddenly he felt an overwhelming desire to let himself go to the devil--not to go violently as a gentleman should, but to sink safely and sensuously out of sight.