He muttered to himself: "By God, I'll starve to death before I ever do that!" He could not detect any aloofness on the part of passers-by.

They were just inattentive.

Lane remembered with sudden shock how differently soldiers had been regarded two or three years ago.

He had read lengthy newspaper accounts of the wild and magnificent welcome accorded to the first soldiers to return to New York.

How strange the contrast! But that was long ago--past history--buried under the immense and hurried and inscrutable changes of a nation.