with the truth and fervour of his feeling.

The hall was not lit up, for daylight still lingered under the new
arrangement. He went towards the drawing-room, but from the very door
shied off to his study and stood irresolute under the picture of a "Man
catching a flea" (Dutch school), which had come down to him from his
father. The governess would be in there with his wife! He must wait.
Essential to go straight to Kathleen and pour it all out, or he would
never do it. He felt as nervous as an undergraduate going up for his
viva' voce. This thing was so big, so astoundingly and unexpectedly
important. He was suddenly afraid of his wife, afraid of her coolness
and her grace, and that something Japanese about her--of all those
attributes he had been accustomed to admire most; afraid, as it were, of
her attraction. He felt young to-night, almost boyish; would she see
that he was not really fifteen years older than herself, and she not
really a part of his collection, of all the admirable appointments of his
home; but a companion spirit to one who wanted a companion badly. In
this agitation of his soul he could keep still no more than he could last
night in the agitation of his senses; and he wandered into the
dining-room. A dainty supper was set out there, sandwiches, and cake,
whisky and the cigarettes--even an early peach. Mr. Bosengate looked at
this peach with sorrow rather than disgust. The perfection of it was of
a piece with all that had gone before this new and sudden feeling. Its
delicious bloom seemed to heighten his perception of the hedge around
him, that hedge of the things he so enjoyed, carefully planted and tended
these many years. He passed it by uneaten, and went to the window. Out
there all was darkening, the fountain, the lime tree, the flower-beds,
and the fields below, with the Jersey cows who would come to your call;
darkening slowly, losing form, blurring into soft blackness, vanishing,
but there none the less--all there--the hedge of his possessions. He
heard the door of the drawing-room open, the voices of his wife and the
governess in the hall, going up to bed. If only they didn't look in here!
If only! The voices ceased. He was safe now--had but to follow in a few
minutes, to make sure of Kathleen alone. He turned round and stared down
the length of the dark dining-room, over the rosewood table, to where in
the mirror above the sideboard at the far end, his figure bathed, a
stai