parting of the ways, calling for instant decision in respect of the
future direction of their journey, gazed upon one another
strangely--each half defiant of the other, each diligent to hide his
own and read the other's thought, each sensible of a crisis, each at
once hurried and arrested by suspicion of impending catastrophe, unless
this way be chosen that declined--though it seemed, in good truth, not
in their keeping, but in that of blind chance only that both selection
and rejection actually resided. And, in this strait, neither habit of
society, fine sword-play of diplomacy and tact, availed to help them.
For suddenly they had outpaced all that, and brought up amongst ancient
and secular springs of action and emotion before which civilisation is
powerless and the ready tongue of fashion dumb.

But even while he so gazed, in fateful suspense and indecision, the fog
came up again, chilling Richard Calmady's blood, oppressing his brain
as with an uprising of foul miasma, blurring his vision, so that
Helen's fair, downward-gazing face was distorted, rendered illusive and
vague. And, along with this, distressing restlessness took him,
compelling him to seek relief in change of posture and of place. He
could not stop to reckon with how that which he proposed to do might
strike an onlooker. His immediate sensations filled his whole horizon.
Silently he slipped down from his chair, stood a moment, supporting
himself with one hand on the edge of the table, and then moved forward
to that side of the pavilion which gave upon the garden. Here the
sunshine was hot upon the pavement, and upon the outer half of each
pale, slender column. Richard leant his shoulder against one of these,
grateful for the genial heat.

Since her first and somewhat inauspicious meeting with him in
childhood, Helen had never, close at hand, seen Richard Calmady walk
thus far. She stared, fascinated by that cruel spectacle. For the
instant transformation of the apparently tall, and conspicuously
well-favoured, courtly gentleman, just now sitting at table with her,
into the shuffling, long-armed, dwarfed and crippled creature was, at
first utterly incredible, then portentous, then, by virtue of its very
monstrosity, absorbing and, to her, adorable, whetting appetite as
veritable famine might. Chastity became to her more than ever absurd, a
culpable waste of her own loveliness, of sensation, of emotion, a sin
against those vernal influences working in