s Mutual Improvement Society
(which had succeeded the Debating Society--defunct through
over-indulgence in early rising). Nevertheless in his heart he was far
more enamoured of the idea of improvement than the worst prig of them
all. He could never for long escape from the dominance of the idea. He
might violently push it away, arguing that it could lead to nothing and
was futile and tedious; back it would come! It had always worried him.

And yet he had accomplished nothing. His systems of reading never
worked for more than a month at a time. And for several months at a
time he simply squandered his spare hours, the hours that were his very
own, in a sort of coma of crass stupidity, in which he seemed to be
thinking of nothing whatever. He had not made any friends whom he could
esteem. He had not won any sort of notice. He was remarkable for
nothing. He was not happy. He was not content. He had the
consciousness of being a spendthrift of time and of years... A fair
quantity of miscellaneous reading--that was all he had done. He was not
a student. He knew nothing about anything. He had stood still.

Thus he upbraided himself. And against this futility was his courage
now braced by the inspiration of the new house, and tightened to a
smarting tension by the brief interview with Janet Orgreave. He was
going to do several feats at once: tackle his father, develop into a
right expert on some subject, pursue his painting, and--for the moment
this had the chief importance--`come out of his shell.' He meant to be
social, to impress himself on others, to move about, to form
connections, to be Edwin Clayhanger, an individuality in the town,--to
live. Why had he refused Janet's invitation? Mere silliness. The old
self nauseated the new. But the next instant he sought excuses for the
old self... Wait a bit! There was time yet.

He was happy in the stress of one immense and complex resolve.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER FIVE.

CLOTHES.

He heard voices below. And his soul seemed to shrink back, as if into
the recesses of the shell from which it had been peeping. His soul was
tremendous, in solitude; but even the rumour of society intimidated it.
His father and another were walking about the ground floor; the rough
voice of his father echoed upwards in all its crudity. He listened for
the other voice; it was his Auntie Clara's. Darius too had taken his
Saturday afternoon for a leisurely visit to the hou