Hewet drew still farther back. His heart was beating very quickly.
Apparently Rachel tried to pull Helen out on to the terrace, and
helen resisted. There was a certain amount of scuffling, entreating,
resisting, and laughter from both of them. Then a man's form appeared.
Hewet could not hear what they were all saying. In a minute they had
gone in; he could hear bolts grating then; there was dead silence, and
all the lights went out.

He turned away, still crumpling and uncrumpling a handful of leaves
which he had torn from the wall. An exquisite sense of pleasure and
relief possessed him; it was all so solid and peaceful after the ball
at the hotel, whether he was in love with them or not, and he was not in
love with them; no, but it was good that they should be alive.

After standing still for a minute or two he turned and began to walk
towards the gate. With the movement of his body, the excitement, the
romance and the richness of life crowded into his brain. He shouted out
a line of poetry, but the words escaped him, and he stumbled among lines
and fragments of lines which had no meaning at all except for the beauty
of the words. He shut the gate, and ran swinging from side to side down
the hill, shouting any nonsense that came into his head. "Here am I,"
he cried rhythmically, as his feet pounded to the left and to the right,
"plunging along, like an elephant in the jungle, stripping the branches
as I go (he snatched at the twigs of a bush at the roadside), roaring
innumerable words, lovely words about innumerable things, running
downhill and talking nonsense aloud to myself about roads and leaves
and lights and women coming out into the darkness--about women--about
Rachel, about Rachel." He stopped and drew a deep breath. The night
seemed immense and hospitable, and although so dark there seemed to
be things moving down there in the harbour and movement out at sea.
He gazed until the darkness numbed him, and then he walked on quickly,
still murmuring to himself. "And I ought to be in bed, snoring
and dreaming, dreaming, dreaming. Dreams and realities, dreams and
realities, dreams and realities," he repeated all the way up the avenue,
scarcely knowing what he said, until he reached the front door. Here he
paused for a second, and collected himself before he opened the door.

His eyes were dazed, his hands very cold, and his brain excited and yet
half asleep. Inside the door everything was as he had left it except