r with his own ideas and feelings, and
violent passions and enthusiasms!

She was to be always with Bruce! That was to be her life!--Bruce, who
was almost indescribable because he was neither bad, nor stupid, nor
bad-looking. He had only one fault. _'Il n'a qu'un defaut--il est
impossible,'_ said Aylmer aloud to himself.

He took up a book--of course one of _her_ books, something she had lent
him.

* * * * *

Now it was time to go out again--to dinner. He couldn't; it was too
much effort. Tonight he would give way, and suffer grief and desire and
longing like a physical pain. He hadn't heard from her lately. Suppose
she should be ill? Suppose she was forgetting him entirely? Soon they
would be going away to some summer place with the children. He stamped
his foot like an angry child as he imagined her in her thin summer
clothes. How people would admire her! How young she would look! Why
couldn't he find some fault with her?--imagine her cold, priggish,
dull, too cautious. But he could only think of her as lovely, as beyond
expression attractive, drawing him like a magnet, as marvellously kind,
gentle, graceful, and clever. He was obliged to use the stupid word
clever, as there was no other. He suddenly remembered her teeth when
she smiled, and a certain slight wave in her thick hair that was a
natural one. It is really barely decent to write about poor Aylmer as
he is alone, suffering, thinking himself unwatched. He suddenly threw
himself on his bed and gave way to a crisis of despair.

* * * * *

About an hour later, when the pain had somehow become stupefied, he lit
a cigarette, ashamed of his emotion even to himself, and rang. The
servant brought him a letter--the English post.

He had thought so much of her, felt her so deeply the last few days
that he fancied it must somehow have reached her. He read:

'My Dear Aylmer,

'I'm glad you are in Paris; it seems nearer home. Last night I went to
the Mitchells' and Mr Mitchell disguised himself as a Russian Count.
Nobody worried about it, and then he went and undisguised himself
again. But Lady Hartland worried about it, and as she didn't know the
Mitchells before, when he was introduced to her properly she begged him
to give her the address of that charming Russian. And Vincy was there,
and darling Vincy told me you'd written him a letter saying you weren't
so very happy. And oh, Aylmer, I don't see t