t he no longer saw any phenomenon as it actually was; neither
himself, nor Hilda, nor the circumstances which were uniting them. He
could not follow a train of thought. He could not remain of one opinion
nor in one mind. Within himself he was perpetually discussing Hilda,
and her attitude. She was marvellous! But was she? She admired him!
But did she? She had shown cunning! But was it not simplicity? He did
not even feel sure whether he liked her. He tried to remember what she
looked like, and he positively could not. The one matter upon which he
could be sure was that his curiosity was hotly engaged. If he had had
to state the case in words to another he would not have gone further
than the word `curiosity.' He had no notion that he was in love. He
did not know what love was; he had not had sufficient opportunity of
learning. Nevertheless the processes of love were at work within him.
Silently and magically, by the force of desire and of pride, the
refracting glass was being specially ground which would enable him,
which would compel him, to see an ideal Hilda when he gazed at the real
Hilda. He would not see the real Hilda any more unless some cataclysm
should shatter the glass. And he might be likened to a prisoner on whom
the gate of freedom is shut for ever, or to a stricken sufferer of whom
it is known that he can never rise again and go forth into the fields.
He was as somebody to whom the irrevocable had happened. And he knew it
not. None knew. None guessed. All day he went his ways, striving to
conceal the whirring preoccupation of his curiosity (a curiosity which
he thought showed a fine masculine dash), and succeeded fairly well.
The excellent, simple Maggie alone remarked in secret that he was
slightly nervous and unnatural. But even she, with all her excellent
simplicity, did not divine his victimhood.

At six o'clock he was back at the shop from his tea. It was a wet,
chill night. On the previous evening he had caught cold, and he was
beginning to sneeze. He said to himself that Hilda could not be
expected to come on such a night. But he expected her. When the shop
clock showed half-past six, he glanced at his watch, which also showed
half-past six. Now at any instant she might arrive. The shop door
opened, and simultaneously his heart ceased to beat. But the person who
came in, puffing and snorting, was his father, who stood within the shop
while shaking his soaked umbrella ov