an had dealt in absolute
sincerity with himself, even he would not have found himself wholly
so. He did not feel as he had felt when Alice rejected him. Then he was
wounded to the quick through his vanity, and now; in spite of all, in
spite of the involuntary tender swaying of his heart toward her through
the mere force of habit, in spite of some remote compunctions for his
want of candour with her, he was supported by a sense of her injustice,
her hardness. Related with this was an obscure sense of escape, of
liberation, which, however he might silence and disown it, was still
there. He could not help being aware that he had long relinquished
tastes customs, purposes, ideals, to gain a peace that seemed more and
more fleeting and uncertain, and that he had submitted to others which,
now that the moment of giving pleasure by his submission was past, he
recognised as disagreeable. He felt a sort of guilt in his enlargement;
he knew, by all that he had, ever heard or read of people in his
position, that he ought to be altogether miserable; and yet this
consciousness of relief persisted. He told himself that a very tragical
thing had befallen him; that this broken engagement was the ruin of
his life and the end of his youth, and that he must live on an old
and joyless man, wise with the knowledge that comes to decrepitude and
despair; he imagined a certain look for himself, a gait, a name, that
would express this; but all the same he was aware of having got out of
something. Was it a bondage, a scrape, as Boardman called it? He thought
he must be a very light, shallow, and frivolous nature not to be utterly
broken up by his disaster.

"I don't know what I'm going home for," he said hoarsely to Boardman.

"Kind of a rest, I suppose," suggested his friend.

"Yes, I guess that's it," said Dan. "I'm tired."

It seemed to him that this was rather fine; it was a fatigue of the soul
that he was to rest from. He remembered the apostrophic close of a novel
in which the heroine dies after much emotional suffering. "Quiet, quiet
heart!" he repeated to himself. Yes, he too had died to hope, to love,
to happiness.

As they drew near their journey's end he said, "I don't know how I'm
going to break it to them."

"Oh, probably break itself," said Boardman. "These things usually do."

"Yes, of course," Dan assented.

"Know from your looks that something's up. Or you might let me go ahead
a little and prepare them."

Dan laughed