ing "got into a hat"--this Victorian expression, found by Mr.
Balladyce in some chronicle of post-Thackerayan manners, and revived by
him in his incomparable way, as who should say, 'What delicious
expressions those good bourgeois had!' now flourished in second
childhood.

In truth, Hilary's difficulty with his new book was merely the one of not
being able to work at it at all. Even the housemaid who "did" his study
noticed that day after day she was confronted by Chapter XXIV., in spite
of her employer's staying in, as usual, every morning.

The change in his manner and face, which had grown strained and harassed,
had been noticed by Bianca, though she would have died sooner than admit
she had noticed anything about him. It was one of those periods in the
lives of households like an hour of a late summer's day--brooding,
electric, as yet quiescent, but charged with the currents of coming
storms.

Twice only in those weeks while Hughs was in prison did Hilary see the
girl. Once he met her when he was driving home; she blushed crimson and
her eyes lighted up. And one morning, too, he passed her on the bench
where they had sat together. She was staring straight before her, the
corners of her mouth drooping discontentedly. She did not see him.

To a man like Hilary-for whom running after women had been about the last
occupation in the world, who had, in fact, always fought shy of them and
imagined that they would always fight shy of him--there was an unusual
enticement and dismay in the feeling that a young girl really was
pursuing him. It was at once too good, too unlikely, and too
embarrassing to be true. His sudden feeling for her was the painful
sensation of one who sees a ripe nectarine hanging within reach. He
dreamed continually of stretching out his hand, and so he did not dare,
or thought he did not dare, to pass that way. All this did not favour
the tenor of a studious, introspective life; it also brought a sense of
unreality which made him avoid his best friends. This, partly, was why
Stephen came to see him one Sunday, his other reason for the visit being
the calculation that Hughs would be released on the following Wednesday.

'This girl,' he thought, 'is going to the house still, and Hilary will
let things drift till he can't stop them, and there'll be a real mess.'

The fact of the man's having been in prison gave a sinister turn to an
affair regarded hitherto as merely sordid by Stephen's ord