r three times whole days off--irrespective of others, of two
or three taken with Miss Gostrey, two or three taken with little
Bilham: he went to Chartres and cultivated, before the front of the
cathedral, a general easy beatitude; he went to Fontainebleau and
imagined himself on the way to Italy; he went to Rouen with a little
handbag and inordinately spent the night.

One afternoon he did something quite different; finding himself in the
neighbourhood of a fine old house across the river, he passed under the
great arch of its doorway and asked at the porter's lodge for Madame de
Vionnet. He had already hovered more than once about that possibility,
been aware of it, in the course of ostensible strolls, as lurking but
round the corner. Only it had perversely happened, after his morning
at Notre Dame, that his consistency, as he considered and intended it,
had come back to him; whereby he had reflected that the encounter in
question had been none of his making; clinging again intensely to the
strength of his position, which was precisely that there was nothing in
it for himself. From the moment he actively pursued the charming
associate of his adventure, from that moment his position weakened, for
he was then acting in an interested way. It was only within a few days
that he had fixed himself a limit: he promised himself his consistency
should end with Sarah's arrival. It was arguing correctly to feel the
title to a free hand conferred on him by this event. If he wasn't to
be let alone he should be merely a dupe to act with delicacy. If he
wasn't to be trusted he could at least take his ease. If he was to be
placed under control he gained leave to try what his position MIGHT
agreeably give him. An ideal rigour would perhaps postpone the trial
till after the Pococks had shown their spirit; and it was to an ideal
rigour that he had quite promised himself to conform.

Suddenly, however, on this particular day, he felt a particular fear
under which everything collapsed. He knew abruptly that he was afraid
of himself--and yet not in relation to the effect on his sensibilities
of another hour of Madame de Vionnet. What he dreaded was the effect
of a single hour of Sarah Pocock, as to whom he was visited, in
troubled nights, with fantastic waking dreams. She loomed at him
larger than life; she increased in volume as she drew nearer; she so
met his eyes that, his imagination taking, after the first step, all,
and