found himself turning
into the clipped laurel walk, where Tommy Alanby had stood with Jane
Lithcom, and he went to the end of it and stood looking out on the view.

"Look at the turn of her head," Lady Mary had said. "Look at her mouth
and chin." And he had been looking at them the whole afternoon, not
because he had intended to do so, but because it was not possible to
prevent himself from doing it.

This was one of the ironies of fate. Orthodox doctrine might suggest
that it was to teach him that his past rebellion had been undue.
Orthodox doctrine was ever ready with these soothing little
explanations. He had raged and sulked at Destiny, and now he had been
given something to rage for.

"No one knows anything about it until it takes him by the throat,"
he was thinking, "and until it happens to a man he has no right
to complain. I was not starving before. I was not hungering and
thirsting--in sight of food and water. I suppose one of the most awful
things in the world is to feel this and know it is no use."

He was not in the condition to reason calmly enough to see that there
might be one chance in a thousand that it was of use. At such times the
most intelligent of men and women lose balance and mental perspicacity.
A certain degree of unreasoning madness possesses them. They see too
much and too little. There were, it was true, a thousand chances against
him, but there was one for him--the chance that selection might be
on his side. He had not that balance of thought left which might have
suggested to him that he was a man young and powerful, and filled with
an immense passion which might count for something. All he saw was
that he was notably in the position of the men whom he had privately
disdained when they helped themselves by marriage. Such marriages he
had held were insults to the manhood of any man and the womanhood of
any woman. In such unions neither party could respect himself or
his companion. They must always in secret doubt each other, fret at
themselves, feel distaste for the whole thing. Even if a man loved such
a woman, and the feeling was mutual, to whom would it occur to believe
it--to see that they were not gross and contemptible? To no one. Would
it have occurred to himself that such an extenuating circumstance was
possible? Certainly it would not. Pig-headed pride and obstinacy it
might be, but he could not yet face even the mere thought of it--even
if his whole position had not been grote