ad. He said no more on that head
just then.

"I shall see you in London," he told her. "I am going to take my
Certificate at Brooklands. Next week I hope. You might come and
applaud."

"No, indeed," said she. "I couldn't bear to see you in those
conditions. I have nerves, if you have none."

"I have plenty," he said, "but you ought to do it. Some day you will
have to face it."

"Why shall I?" He wouldn't tell her.

That made her daring. "Why shall I?"

His first answer was a steady look; his second, "Nothing stops, you
know. Things all swim to a point. Ebb and flow. They don't go back
until they reach it."

"And then?"

"And then they may--or they may not blot it out and swim on."

CHAPTER XIV

THE GREAT SCHEME

The height of her esteem for Urquhart was the measure of her growing
disrelish for James. It was hard to visit upon a man the sense that he
was not what he had never dreamed of being; but that is what happened
to him. By how much he had risen in her eyes when she made an Eros of
him, by so much did he fall when she found out her mistake. Because he
was obviously no Eros, was he so obviously but part of a man? It
seemed so indeed. If he discerned it there's no wonder. He irritated
her; she found herself instinctively combating his little preparations
for completeness of effect--she was herself all for simplicity in
these days. She could not conceal her scorn, for instance, when he
refused to go with her to dine in a distant suburb because he would
not have time to dress. "As if," she said, "you eat your shirt-front!"
Trenchancy from James produced a silent disapproval. As he said, if
she didn't sniff, she looked as if she felt a cold coming on. She
knew it herself and took great pains; but it coloured her tone, if not
her words. Too often she was merely silent when he was very much
himself. Silence is contagious: they passed a whole dinner through
without a word, sometimes.

Now James had his feelings, and was rather unhappy over what he called
her moods. He thought she did not go out enough. She ought to see more
people: a woman liked to be admired. It did not occur to him that she
might have been very glad of it from him; but then he didn't know how
highly she had been elated with what she called, thinking it really
so, his love-in-the-darkness. No, Macartney, if ever he looked into
himself, found nothing wrong there. He kept a wary eye through his
masking-glass upon Urquhart's comings