en out into a blank and sightless world
hoping the chill of it would allay the fever in his blood,--and of the
fog again, in the afternoon, from out which the branches of the great
trees, like famine-stricken arms in tattered draperies, seemed to pluck
evilly at the carriage, as he walked the smoking horses up and down the
Newlands' drive, waiting for Helen to rejoin him. And now, somehow,
that fog seemed to come up between him and the well-furnished
breakfast-table, between him and the radiant expanse of the vivacious,
capricious, half-classic, half-modern, mercantile city outstretched
there, teeming, breeding, fermenting, in the fecundating heat of the
noonday sun. The chill of the fog struck cold into his vitals now,
giving him the strangest physical sensation. Richard straightened
himself in his chair, passed his hands across his eyes impatiently.
Brockhurst, and all the old life of it, was a subject of which he
forbade himself remembrance. He had divorced himself from all that, cut
himself adrift from it long ago. By an act of will, he tried to put it
out of his mind now. But the fog remained--an actual clouding of his
physical vision, blurring all he looked upon. It was horribly
uncomfortable. He wished he was alone. Then he might have slipped down
from his chair and, according to his poor capacity of locomotion,
sought relief in movement.

Meanwhile, silently, mechanically, Helen de Vallorbes continued her
breakfast. And as she so continued, in addition to his singular
physical sensations of blurred vision and clinging chill, he became
aware of a growing embarrassment and constraint between himself and his
companion. So far, his and her intercourse had been easy and
spontaneous, because superficial. Since that first interview on the
terrace a tacit agreement had existed to avoid the personal note. Now,
for cause unknown, that intercourse threatened entering upon a new
phase. It was as though the concentration, the tension, which he
observed in her, and of which he was sensible in himself, must of
necessity eventuate in some unbosoming, some act--almost
involuntary--of self-revelation. This unaccustomed silence and
restraint seemed to Richard charged with consequences which, in his
present condition of defective volition, he was powerless to prevent.
And this displeased him, mastery of surrounding influences being very
dear to him.

At last, coffee having been served, the men-servants withdrew to the
house, but