her, shrunken into a corner of her brougham and veiled as if
in consequence of tears, revolving round the solitude of the Drive. She
had of course been deeply displeased and was not herself; the motion of
the carriage soothed her, had an effect on her nerves. Nick remembered
that in the morning, at his door, she had appeared to be going home; so
she had plunged into the drearier resort on second thoughts and as she
noted herself near it. He lingered another half-hour, walked up and down
the room many times and thought of many things. Had she misunderstood
him when he said he would come at five? Couldn't she be sure, even if
she had, that he would come early rather than late, and mightn't she
have left a message for him on the chance? Going out that way a few
minutes before he was to come had even a little the air of a thing done
on purpose to offend him; as if she had been so displeased that she had
taken the nearest occasion of giving him a sign she meant to break with
him. But were these the things Julia did and was that the way she did
them--his fine, proud, delicate, generous Julia?

When six o'clock came poor Nick felt distinctly resentful; but he stayed
ten minutes longer on the possibility that she would in the morning have
understood him to mention that hour. The April dusk began to gather and
the unsociability of her behaviour, especially if she were still
rumbling round the Park, became absurd. Anecdotes came back to him,
vaguely remembered, heard he couldn't have said when or where, of poor
artists for whom life had been rendered difficult by wives who wouldn't
allow them the use of the living female model and who made scenes if
they encountered on the staircase such sources of inspiration. These
ladies struck him as vulgar and odious persons, with whom it seemed
grotesque that Julia should have anything in common. Of course she was
not his wife yet, and of course if she were he should have washed his
hands of every form of activity requiring the services of the sitter;
but even these qualifications left him with a power to wince at the way
in which the woman he was so sure he loved just escaped ranking herself
with the Philistines.

At a quarter past six he rang a bell and told the servant who answered
it that he was going and that Mrs. Dallow was to be informed as soon as
she came in that he had expected to find her and had waited an hour and
a quarter. But he had just reached the doorstep of departure when