leave, insubordinately, humorously,
contagiously happy.

As he drove, Tabs argued out his problem. From house-top to house-top
the June sky sagged like an azure canopy. Across pavements the afternoon
sunshine lay in bars of gold. Flower-sellers stood at intervals along
the curb, scenting the air with their country nosegays. A lazy breeze
ruffled drooping flags which had been hung out for the latest festival.
Everywhere there were girls in their blowy summer dresses--girls of all
kinds and sorts. Single girls, married girls, girls who worked for their
livings, girls whose business it was to be beautiful, girls who were
merely drudges. There were both pathos and urgency in the sight of them.
It was not good that they should live alone. They had wasted their youth
too long. The great necessity for that waste was ended. Not one of them
was a patch on Maisie.

If he did not desire Maisie, why did he miss her? Was it that he would
not allow himself to desire her? Why did he encourage his passion for
Terry--Terry who in her mild and gentle way had become almost insolently
unappreciative? Wouldn't he be wiser to content himself with the woman
who was within reach rather than----?

He frowned as the truth dawned on him. For the first time he had
acknowledged it. He did love Maisie. Not as he loved Terry, of course;
but in a more human way, to the extent of needing her companionship. He
had made a discovery that amazed himself--a discovery that thousands of
men had made before him: that it was possible for him to love two women
at the same tune, utterly differently and yet with entire sincerity. He
felt as lowered in his self-esteem as if he had committed bigamy. He was
dumbfounded at this new twist that his emotions had developed. Without
consulting him, they had played a trick on him which forever
disqualified him for the larger role of constant lover. He felt himself
pushed down to almost the level of a philanderer--a philanderer not much
more august than Adair. The suspicion crossed his mind that, if he could
believe himself in love with two women, he couldn't be very mightily in
love with either.

But he was impatient of delays--worn out with procrastinations. The
magnificent chances of the present were slipping past him. One day he
would be old. "_Now, now, now_, is the appointed time," throbbed his
engine. Out of the sheer disorganization of his thoughts a desperate
scheme took shape. Why should he not go to Maisie an