e had recently
passed not a few with the _French Revolution_. But the evenings of
course were not, could not be, empty. He often went out with Charmian.
He was beginning to know something of the society in which she had
always lived. There were many pleasant, some charming, people in it. He
found a certain enjoyment in the little dinners, the theater parties,
even in the few receptions he had been to. But he was obliged to
acknowledge to himself that, when in this society, he disliked the fact
that he was an unknown man. This society did not give him the incentive
to do anything great. On the other hand it made him dislike being--or
was it only seeming?--small. Charmian's attitude, too, had often
rendered him secretly uneasy when they were among people together. He
had been conscious of a lurking dissatisfaction in her, a scarcely
repressed impatience. He did not know exactly what was the matter. But
he felt the alert tension of the woman who is not satisfied with her
position in a society. It had reacted upon him. He had felt as if he
were closely connected with it, though he had not quite understood how.

All this now rose up, seemed to spread out before his mind as he walked
in Battersea Park. And he said to himself, "It can't go on. I simply
must get to work on something. I must get a grip on myself and my life
again." He remembered the heat of his soul after he had heard Jacques
Sennier's opera, the passion almost to do something great that had
glowed in him, the longing for fame. Then he had said to himself: "My
life shall feed my art. I'll live, and by living I'll achieve." Out of
that heat no rare flower had arisen. He had come out into the world. He
had married Charmian, had travelled in Italy. And that was all.

That day he was angry with himself, was sick of his idle life. But he
did not feel within him the strong certainty that he would be able to
take his life in hand and transform it, which drives doubt and sorrow
out of a man. He kept on saying, "I must!" But he did not say, "I
shall!"

The fact was that the mainspring was missing from the watch. Claude was
living as if he loved, but he was not loving.

At half-past seven he passed up the handsome steps and under the arch
which led to his studio.

The caretaker with gouty hands met him. This man had been a soldier, and
still had a soldier's eyes, and a way of presenting himself, rather
sternly and watchfully, to those arriving in "my building," as he