at what had
happened was bound to have happened. For a few weeks he had lived in a
fool's paradise: that was all... Fantastic scheme, mad self-deception!
In such wise he thought of his love-affair. His profound satisfaction
was that none except his father knew of it, and even his father did not
know how far it had gone. He felt that if the town had been aware of
his jilting, he could not have borne the humiliation. To himself he had
been horribly humiliated; but he had recovered in his own esteem.

It was only by very slow processes, by insensible degrees, that he had
arrived at the stage of being able to say to his mirror, "I've got over
that!" And who could judge better than he? He could trace no mark of
the episode in his face. Save for the detail of a moustache, it seemed
to him that he had looked on precisely the same unchangeable face for a
dozen years. Strange, that suffering had left no sign! Strange, that,
in the months just after Hilda's marriage, no acquaintance had taken him
on one side and said, "What is the tragedy I can read on your features?"

And indeed the truth was that no one suspected. The vision of his face
would remain with people long after he had passed them in the street, or
spoken to them in the shop. The charm of his sadness persisted in their
memory. But they would easily explain it to themselves by saying that
his face had a naturally melancholy cast--a sort of accident that had
happened to him in the beginning! He had a considerable reputation, of
which he was imperfectly aware, for secretiveness, timidity, gentleness,
and intellectual superiority. Sundry young women thought of him
wistfully when smiling upon quite other young men, and would even kiss
him while kissing them, according to the notorious perversity of love.

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

THREE.

He was reading Swift's "Tale of a Tub" eagerly, tasting with a palate
consciously fastidious and yet catholic, the fine savour of a
masterpiece. By his secret enthusiasm, which would escape from him at
rare intervals in a word to a friend, he was continuing the reputation
of the "Tale of a Tub" from one century towards the next. A classic
remains a classic only because a few hundred Edwins up and down England
enjoy it so heartily that their pleasure becomes religious. Edwin,
according to his programme, had no right to be amusing himself with
Swift at that hour. The por