his mind,
vivid and almost fierce. Especially he remembered the clever woman, the
turn of her beautiful head, the look in the eyes contradicting the
lovely line of the profile, the irony of her smile, the attractive
intonations of her lazy voice. He remembered his two visits to her, how
she had secretly defied him. He recalled exactly her appearance when he
had bade her good-bye for the last time, eight days before she had been
married to Nigel. She had stood by the hearth, in a rose-coloured gown,
with smoke-wreaths curling round her. And she had looked quite lovely in
her secret triumph. But as he went out, he had noticed the tiny wrinkles
near her eyes, the slight hardness about her cheek-bones, the cynical
droop at the corners of her mouth.

And he had remembered these things when he learnt of the marriage, and
he had foreseen disaster.

He smoothed out Nigel's letter, and he took up his pen to answer it.
Since he could not answer it in person, he must despatch the substitute.
But now the dreary quiet of the London Sunday distressed him as if it
were noise. He found himself listening to it with a sort of anxiety; he
felt as if he must struggle against it before he could write sincerely
to Nigel. There was something paralyzing in this dark and foggy peace.

Why was he heaping up money, grasping at fame, dedicating himself to
imprisonment within the limits of this house, within this sunless town?
Why was he starving his love of beauty, his natural love of adventure,
his quick feeling for romance? Or was it quick any longer? Things not
encouraged die sometimes. Certainly, he was starving deliberately much
of himself.

Again came the desire to let, for once, a strong impulse have its way,
to forget, for once, that he was a man under strict discipline--the
discipline of his own cruel will--or to remember and mutiny. For a
moment his thoughts were almost like a schoolboy's. The fun of it! The
fun of rapid packing, of saying to Henry (unboundedly amazed), "Call me
a four-wheeler!" of the drive to Charing Cross, of the registering of
the luggage, of the rapid flight through the wintry landscape till the
grey sea beat up almost against the line, of the--

And presently Naples! A blue sea, the mountains of Crete, the iron
ridges of Zante, and at last a laughing harbour, boats with bellying
lateen sails manned by dark men in turbans, white houses, flat roofs,
palm-trees!

It would be good! It would be splendid!

If h