lse! Love
in return--that he could expect from no one, being too ugly and too
unattractive. But the love he offered would not then have been vile.
The insult to Miss Pembroke, who was consecrated, and whom he had
consecrated, who could still see Gerald, and always would see him,
shining on his everlasting throne this was the crime from the devil,
the crime that no penance would ever purge. She knew nothing. She never
would know. But the crime was registered in heaven.

He had been tempted to confide in Ansell. But to what purpose? He would
say, "I love Miss Pembroke." and Stewart would reply, "You ass." And
then. "I'm never going to tell her." "You ass," again. After all, it
was not a practical question; Agnes would never hear of his fall. If
his friend had been, as he expressed it, "labelled"; if he had been
a father, or still better a brother, one might tell him of the
discreditable passion. But why irritate him for no reason? Thinking "I
am always angling for sympathy; I must stop myself," he hurried onward
to the Union.

He found his guests half way up the stairs, reading the advertisements
of coaches for the Long Vacation. He heard Mrs. Lewin say, "I wonder
what he'll end by doing." A little overacting his part, he apologized
nonchalantly for his lateness.

"It's always the same," cried Agnes. "Last time he forgot I was coming
altogether." She wore a flowered muslin--something indescribably liquid
and cool. It reminded him a little of those swift piercing streams,
neither blue nor green, that gush out of the dolomites. Her face
was clear and brown, like the face of a mountaineer; her hair was so
plentiful that it seemed banked up above it; and her little toque,
though it answered the note of the dress, was almost ludicrous, poised
on so much natural glory. When she moved, the sunlight flashed on her
ear-rings.

He led them up to the luncheon-room. By now he was conscious of his
limitations as a host, and never attempted to entertain ladies in his
lodgings. Moreover, the Union seemed less intimate. It had a faint
flavour of a London club; it marked the undergraduate's nearest approach
to the great world. Amid its waiters and serviettes one felt impersonal,
and able to conceal the private emotions. Rickie felt that if Miss
Pembroke knew one thing about him, she knew everything. During this
visit he took her to no place that he greatly loved.

"Sit down, ladies. Fall to. I'm sorry. I was out towards Coton with a