much interposing experience--which also faced him; and
one would float to it doubtless duly through these caverns of Kubla
Khan. It was really behind everything; it hadn't merged in what he had
done; his final appreciation of what he had done--his appreciation on
the spot--would provide it with its main sharpness. The spot so
focussed was of course Woollett, and he was to see, at the best, what
Woollett would be with everything there changed for him. Wouldn't THAT
revelation practically amount to the wind-up of his career? Well, the
summer's end would show; his suspense had meanwhile exactly the
sweetness of vain delay; and he had with it, we should mention, other
pastimes than Maria's company--plenty of separate musings in which his
luxury failed him but at one point. He was well in port, the outer sea
behind him, and it was only a matter of getting ashore. There was a
question that came and went for him, however, as he rested against the
side of his ship, and it was a little to get rid of the obsession that
he prolonged his hours with Miss Gostrey. It was a question about
himself, but it could only be settled by seeing Chad again; it was
indeed his principal reason for wanting to see Chad. After that it
wouldn't signify--it was a ghost that certain words would easily lay to
rest. Only the young man must be there to take the words. Once they
were taken he wouldn't have a question left; none, that is, in
connexion with this particular affair. It wouldn't then matter even to
himself that he might now have been guilty of speaking BECAUSE of what
he had forfeited. That was the refinement of his supreme scruple--he
wished so to leave what he had forfeited out of account. He wished not
to do anything because he had missed something else, because he was
sore or sorry or impoverished, because he was maltreated or desperate;
he wished to do everything because he was lucid and quiet, just the
same for himself on all essential points as he had ever been. Thus it
was that while he virtually hung about for Chad he kept mutely putting
it: "You've been chucked, old boy; but what has that to do with it?"
It would have sickened him to feel vindictive.

These tints of feeling indeed were doubtless but the iridescence of his
idleness, and they were presently lost in a new light from Maria. She
had a fresh fact for him before the week was out, and she practically
met him with it on his appearing one night. He hadn't on thi