ges old
in him revolted at the fruitless squandering.

The fact remained that there was no one he wanted to marry, that he no
longer wanted to marry at all; his wish to marry Blanche had been an
exigency of the situation; in himself his instinct against inroads on
privacy would never have inclined him towards it. Also there was no one
girl he wanted, and he told himself there never would be again; all
personal emotion was drained away from him. The only girl he even knew
at all was Phoebe, and at the idea of her in connection with himself
he smiled. That would indeed be giving the lie to all he had struggled
after--to the vision of the Cloom to be that he had built up with much
work and many dreams.

Suddenly as he lay on the grass he felt tired, so tired that it seemed
to him he did not so very much want anything after all, and that a
leaden weariness was the worst thing he would have to fight against. He
laid his face in the warm fragrant grass and let his hands lie out on
either side of him, then stretched to the extent of his limbs, and
rolled on his back. Wanda, eager to be bounding on once more, licked his
cheek with her warm, quick-moving tongue, and he rubbed her head against
him and told her she was becoming a fussy old lady. Still, it was time
he went on to Vellan-Clowse; the sun was near the rim of the burning
sea, and far below the foam was tinged with fire. He scrambled to his
feet and went on.

At the mill he found he had been wrong in his conjecture and Phoebe
had not yet heard from Vassie. She was looking pale and thin; there were
shadows under her soft eyes, and her mouth drooped at the corners.
Ishmael's news stung her to interest and to enthusiasm for Vassie, but
seemed, when she had cooled down, only to make her melancholy deeper. At
supper--to which Ishmael needed little pressing to stay, for in talk and
companionship he forgot his vacant house--she was obviously trying to
make herself pleasant and bright; she would not have been Phoebe if
she had allowed her own comfort to come before that of others.

Phoebe was changed in this past year; she was no longer so sprightly
in her little flirtations, her tongue had lost its rustic readiness, her
eyes held a furtive something, as though she were always watching some
memory. Her prettiness had gained in quality however, and her charm,
though more conscious, was more certain. Curiously enough, the charm
struck Ishmael for the first time now that he saw