still a chance to catch a glimpse of her
face, a sign from her hand. Gone! He walked away with his head down. The
more blissful the hours just spent, the greater the desolation when they
are over. Of such is the nature of love, as he was now discerning. The
longing to have her always with him was growing fast. Since her
husband knew--why wait? There would be no rest for either of them in an
existence of meetings and partings like this, with the menace of that
fellow. She must come away with him at once--abroad--until things had
declared themselves; and then he must find a place where they could live
and she feel safe and happy. He must show he was in dead earnest, set
his affairs in order. And he thought: 'No good doing things by halves.
Mother must know. The sooner the better. Get it over--at once!' And,
with a grimace of discomfort, he set out for his aunt's house in Cadogan
Gardens, where his mother always stayed when she was in town.

Lady Summerhay was in the boudoir, waiting for dinner and reading a book
on dreams. A red-shaded lamp cast a mellow tinge over the grey frock,
over one reddish cheek and one white shoulder. She was a striking
person, tall and well built, her very blonde hair only just turning
grey, for she had married young and been a widow fifteen years--one of
those women whose naturally free spirits have been netted by association
with people of public position. Bubbles were still rising from her
submerged soul, but it was obvious that it would not again set eyes
on the horizon. With views neither narrow nor illiberal, as views in
society go, she judged everything now as people of public position
must--discussion, of course, but no alteration in one's way of living.
Speculation and ideas did not affect social usage. The countless
movements in which she and her friends were interested for the
emancipation and benefit of others were, in fact, only channels for
letting off her superfluous goodwill, conduit-pipes, for the directing
spirit bred in her. She thought and acted in terms of the public good,
regulated by what people of position said at luncheon and dinner. And it
was surely not her fault that such people must lunch and dine. When her
son had bent and kissed her, she held up the book to him and said:

"Well, Bryan, I think this man's book disgraceful; he simply runs his
sex-idea to death. Really, we aren't all quite so obsessed as that. I do
think he ought to be put in his own lunatic asylum."