he could see the curtain or blind
trembling in the wind he was hygienically at ease. His existence was a
series of catarrhal colds, which, however, as he would learnedly explain
to Maggie, could not be connected, in the brain of a reasonable person,
with currents of fresh air. Maggie mutely disdained his science. This,
too, fretted him. Occasionally she would somewhat tartly assert that he
was a regular old maid. The accusation made no impression on him at
all. But when, more than ordinarily exacerbated, she sang out that he
was `exactly like his father,' he felt wounded.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TWO.

The appearance of his bedroom, and the fact that he enjoyed being in it
alone, gave some ground for Maggie's first accusation. A screen hid the
bed, and this screen was half covered with written papers of memoranda;
roughly, it divided the room into dormitory and study. The whole
chamber was occupied by Edwin's personal goods, great and small, ranged
in the most careful order; it was full; in the occupation of a young man
who was not precociously an old maid, it would have been littered. It
was a complex and yet practical apparatus for daily use, completely
organised for the production of comfort. Edwin would move about in it
with the loving and assured gestures of a creator; and always he was
improving its perfection. His bedroom was his passion.

Often, during the wilderness of the day, he would think of his bedroom
as of a refuge, to which in the evening he should hasten. Ascending the
stairs after the meal, his heart would run on in advance of his legs,
and be within the room before his hand had opened the door. And then he
would close the door, as upon the whole tedious world, and turn up the
gas, and light the stove with an explosive plop, and settle himself.
And in the first few minutes of reading he would with distinct,
conscious pleasure, allow his attention to circle the room, dwelling
upon piled and serried volumes, and delighting in orderliness and in
convenience. And he would reflect: "This is my life. This is what I
shall always live for. This is the best. And why not?" It seemed to
him when he was alone in his bedroom and in the night, that he had
respectably well solved the problem offered to him by destiny. He
insisted to himself sharply that he was not made for marriage, that he
had always known marriage to be impossible for him, th