e
gestures! But in the midst of this transformation her honesty,
her loyalty, her exquisite ingenuousness, her superb dependability
remained. She was no light creature, no flirt nor seeker after dubious
sensations. He felt that at last he was appreciated by one whose
appreciation was tremendously worth having. He was confirmed in that
private opinion of himself that no mistakes hitherto made in his
career had been able to destroy. He felt happy and confident as never
before.

Luck, of course; but luck deserved! He could marry this unique
creature and be idolized and cherished for the rest of his life. In
an instant, from being a scorner of conjugal domesticity, he became
a scorner of the bachelor's existence, with its immeasurable secret
ennui hidden beneath the jaunty cloak of a specious freedom--freedom
to be bored, freedom to fret, and long and envy, freedom to eat ashes
and masticate dust! He would marry her. Yes, he was saved, because he
was loved. And he meant to be worthy of his regenerate destiny. All
the best part of his character came to the surface and showed in his
face. But he did not ask his heart whether he was or was not in love
with Rachel. The point did not present itself. He certainly never
doubted that he was seeing her with a quite normal vision.

Their talk went through and through the enormous topic of the night
and day, arriving at no conclusion whatever, except that there was no
conclusion--not even a theory of a conclusion. (And the Louis who now
discussed the case was an innocent, reborn Louis, quite unconnected
with the Louis of the previous evening; he knew no more of the
inwardness of the affair than Rachel did. Of such singular feats of
doubling the personality is the self-deceiving mind capable.) After
a time it became implicit in the tone of their conversation that
the mysterious disappearance in a small, ordinary house of even so
colossal a sum as nine hundred and sixty-five pounds did not mean
the end of the world. That is to say, they grew accustomed to the
situation. Louis, indeed, permitted himself to suggest, as a man of
the large, still-existing world, that Rachel should guard against
over-estimating the importance of the sum. True, as he had several
times reflected, it did represent an income of about a pound a
week! But, after all, what was a pound a week, viewed in a proper
perspective?...

Louis somehow glided from the enormous topic to the topic of the
newest cinema--Rac