s, the booths, the
notice-boards, the vast dappled sea of hats and faces in the distant
cheaper parts of the Hippodrome, were laved in the descending, caressing
floods of voluptuous, warm sunshine. The air itself seemed luminous. The
enchantment of the sun was irresistible; it stunned apprehensions and
sad memories, obliterating for a moment all that was or might be unhappy
in the past or in the future. George yielded to it. He abandoned his
preoccupations about the unsatisfactoriness of using somebody else's car
in the absence of the owner, about Mr. and Mrs. Ingram's ignorance of
the fact that their daughter had gone off alone with him, about Lois's
perfect indifference to this fact, about the engagement of Laurencine to
a man not her equal in worth, about the strange, uncomfortable effect of
Laurencine's engagement upon his attitude towards Lois, and finally and
supremely about the competition. He gave himself up to the bright warmth
like an animal, and forgot. And he became part of the marvellous and
complicated splendour of the scene, took pride in it, took even credit
for it (Heaven knew why!), and gradually passed from insular
astonishment to a bland, calm acceptance of the miracles of sensuous
beatitude which civilization had to offer.

After all, he was born to such experiences; they were his right; and he
was equal to them. Nevertheless his conviction of the miraculous
fortunately was not impaired. What was impaired was his conviction of
his own culture. He was constantly thinking that he knew everything or
could imagine everything, and constantly undergoing the shock of
undeception; but the shock of the Longchamps Sunday was excessive. He
had quite failed to imagine the race-meeting; he had imagined an
organism brilliant, perhaps, but barbaric and without form and style; he
had imagined grotesque contrasts of squalor, rascality, and fashion; he
had imagined an affair predominantly equine and masculine. The reality
did not correspond; it transcended his imagination; it painfully
demonstrated his jejune crudity. The Hippodrome was as formalized and
stylistic as an Italian garden; the only contrasts were those of one
elegance with another; horses were not to be seen, except occasionally
in the distance when under their riders they shot past some dark
background a flitting blur of primary colours with a rumble of muffled
thunder; and women, not men, predominated.

On entering the Hippodrome George and Lois had m