nything might be, or might not be, and decision was
hateful; it was delicious to float on the calm waters of meditative
indifference, between the giant rocks, hope and despair, in the straits
that lead the sea of life to the ocean of eternity.

He knew that he was the end of a race that had reigned and could never
reign again. It was better that the end should be a question than a hope
deceived, or a cry of impotent hatred uttered against Something which
might not exist after all. If he had a philosophy it was that, and
nothing more; and though it was not much, it had helped him to live
without much pain and almost always with a certain dreamy, intellectual,
wondering pleasure in his own thoughts. Sometimes he was irritated out
of that state by the demands and doings of the Princess Anatolie, as on
the day when he and his friend had talked in the garden beyond the
river; and then he spoke of ending all at a stroke, and almost believed
that he might do it; and he envied Lamberti his love of life and action.
But such moods soon passed and left him himself again, so that he
marvelled how he could ever have been so much moved. It was always the
same, in the end, but such as it was the world was not a bad world for
him.

Here was something different from all the past, and it had begun without
warning, and was growing against his will, because it fed on that with
which his will had nothing to do. There is no fatalism like that of the
indifferent man who believes in nothing, not even in himself, and who
admits nothing to be positive except crime and dishonour. Why should he
not fall in love with Cecilia Palladio, since he had previously stated
to himself, to her, and to his trusted friend, that nothing could induce
him to marry her? It was quite clear from the first that she, on her
side, would never fall in love with him. He looked upon that as
altogether out of the question, and perhaps with reason. On the other
hand, he had not the slightest faith in the lasting nature of anything
he might feel, and therefore he was not afraid of consequences, which
rarely indeed frighten a man who is doing what he likes. It is more
generally the woman that thinks of them, and points them out because
"there is still time!" She also heaps her scorn upon the man if he is
wise enough to agree with her; but that is a detail, and perhaps it
ought not to be mentioned.

As for the fact that he was beginning to be in love, Guido no longer
doubte