le
to shake her off. She would cling to me, and because she clung she
would believe that she loved me, but she would have nothing but my
weakness.... It has happened before. They seem to find some bitter
triumph in a man's weakness.'

The humility of his confession touched Clara deeply. It was the
humility of the man's feeling, in contrast with his ferocious,
intellectual arrogance, that moved her to a compassion which steadied
her in her swift joy. His story revealed his life to her so vividly
that she felt that without more she knew him through and through.
Everything else was detail with which she had no particular concern.

They walked along in silence for some time, he brooding, she smiling
happily, and she pictured the two sides of his life, the rich and
powerful imaginative activity, and the simple tenderness of his
solitude.

It seemed to be her turn to confess, but she could not. The day's
perfection would be marred for them, and that she would not have. He
would understand. Yes, he would understand, but men have illusions
which are very dear to them. She must protect them, and let him keep
them until the dear reality made it necessary for him to discard them.

At Hampstead they came on a holiday throng and mingled with them, glad
once again to be in contact with simple people taking the pleasures for
which they lived. There were swing-boats, merry-go-rounds, cocoa-nut
shies, penny-in-the-slot machines.... The proprietor of the
merry-go-round was rather like Sir Henry Butcher in appearance, and
Clara realised with a start that the Imperium and this gaily painted
machine were both parts of the same trade. The people paid their
twopence or their half-guineas and were given a certain excitement, a
share in a game, a pleasure which without effort on their part broke
the monotony of existence.... Of the two on this August day she
preferred the merry-go-round. It was in the open air, and it was
simple and unpretentious; and it was surely better that the people
should be amused with wooden horses than with human beings as
mechanical and as miserably driven by machinery.... She was annoyed
with Rodd because he was exasperated by the silly giggling of the
servant-girls and the raffish capers of the young man.

'I hate the pleasures of the people,' he said. 'They give the measure
of the quality of their work--lazy, slovenly, monotonous repetition,
producing nothing splendid but machines, wonderful e