ed activity is only put on till he turns the
first corner, for he tries to conceal his lameness and decrepitude,
especially from his wife, who strains her gaze after him. Just before
starting off he takes the superfluous precaution to put some
shoe-blacking on his hair which shows white about the temples. He comes
back after a six hours' search, about noon, his neglected dinner still
in his pocket. He has tramped ten or twelve miles with no open shop for
him. He does not blame anyone, but regards it all as an accident that
has happened to him in some unfortunate way. He broods over this till I
can see it in his eyes; but I don't dare say anything to him. He is too
old, and I might only make his trouble worse. If I were a sculptor I
would put him before the world in a material almost as hard and I hope
more enduring than itself. His arms never hang down by his side, but
seem to be set in the position required by his last job, shovelling. It
reminds me of the time, thirty years ago, when I was laid off, and the
madness first got in and crouched behind my eyes....

"Yes, I suppose I am mad. It is true that if I cannot have the
intellectual red that heralds the approach of Dawn, then I want the red
light of Terror that ushers in the Night. My feelings have been
clamouring for many years against my cowardly better judgment. I believe
some day they will break loose and throw me, as from a catapult, even up
against the stone wall of atrocity we call Society."

Thus the idealist becomes frenzied at times at the incredible
difficulties in the way of a total revolt against society, even against
nature. We shall see how the absolute nature of his anarchism led Terry
further and further along the path of rejection, "passing up" one thing
after another, even letting anarchism as a social enthusiasm go by the
board and making his continued relation with a human being, even with
Marie, a practical impossibility.

CHAPTER XI

_The End of the Salon_

Terry's love for Marie was partly due, as we have seen, to his passion
for social propaganda: that she represented the "social limit" was a
strong charm to him. She, woman-like, always insisted on the personal
relation, and for a long time his interest in her personality as such,
combined with his social enthusiasm, was strong enough to keep the bond
intact. When, however, his social enthusiasm paled, and his merely
individualistic anarchism became stronger, his interest in Mar