He started toward home, walking up Sutter Street, proceeding slowly, his hands in his pockets.

All at once he stopped, without knowing why; he roused himself and looked about him.

There was a smell of eucalyptus in the air.

Across the street was the huge white house, and he found that he had stopped just before the door of the building on the top floor of which his studio was situated.

All day Vandover's mind had been in the greatest agitation, his ideas leaping and darting hither and thither like terrified birds in a cage.