thought was the thought with which he had started. He was
still thinking about the people in the house which he had left; but
instead of remembering, with whatever accuracy he could, their looks and
sayings, he had consciously taken leave of the literal truth. A turn of
the street, a firelit room, something monumental in the procession
of the lamp-posts, who shall say what accident of light or shape had
suddenly changed the prospect within his mind, and led him to murmur
aloud:

"She'll do.... Yes, Katharine Hilbery'll do.... I'll take Katharine
Hilbery."

As soon as he had said this, his pace slackened, his head fell, his eyes
became fixed. The desire to justify himself, which had been so urgent,
ceased to torment him, and, as if released from constraint, so that
they worked without friction or bidding, his faculties leapt forward and
fixed, as a matter of course, upon the form of Katharine Hilbery. It was
marvellous how much they found to feed upon, considering the destructive
nature of Denham's criticism in her presence. The charm, which he had
tried to disown, when under the effect of it, the beauty, the character,
the aloofness, which he had been determined not to feel, now possessed
him wholly; and when, as happened by the nature of things, he had
exhausted his memory, he went on with his imagination. He was conscious
of what he was about, for in thus dwelling upon Miss Hilbery's
qualities, he showed a kind of method, as if he required this vision of
her for a particular purpose. He increased her height, he darkened
her hair; but physically there was not much to change in her. His most
daring liberty was taken with her mind, which, for reasons of his own,
he desired to be exalted and infallible, and of such independence that
it was only in the case of Ralph Denham that it swerved from its high,
swift flight, but where he was concerned, though fastidious at first,
she finally swooped from her eminence to crown him with her approval.
These delicious details, however, were to be worked out in all their
ramifications at his leisure; the main point was that Katharine Hilbery
would do; she would do for weeks, perhaps for months. In taking her he
had provided himself with something the lack of which had left a
bare place in his mind for a considerable time. He gave a sigh of
satisfaction; his consciousness of his actual position somewhere in the
neighborhood of Knightsbridge returned to him, and he was soon speeding
in