and seemed to be thinking of something else.

Next morning, though the sun shone brilliantly, she did not appear in
the garden before breakfast. From a window above, eyes were watching,
watching in vain. At the meal Irene was her wonted self, but she did
not enter into conversation with Otway. The young man had grown silent
again.

Heavily he went up to his room. Mechanically he seated himself at the
table. But, instead of opening books, he propped his head upon his
hands, and so sat for a long, long time.

When thoughts began to shape themselves (at first he did not think, but
lived in a mere tumult of emotions) he recalled Irene's question: what
career had he really in view? A dull, respectable clerkship, with two
or three hundred a year, and the chance of dreary progress by seniority
till it was time to retire on a decent pension? That, he knew, was what
the Civil Service meant. The far, faint possibility of some assistant
secretaryship to some statesman in office; really nothing else. His
inquiries had apprised him of this delightful state of things, but he
had not cared. Now he did care. He was beginning to understand himself
better.

In truth, he had never looked forward beyond a year or two. Ambition,
desires, he possessed in no common degree, but as a vague, unexamined
impulse. He had dreamt of love, but timidly, tremulously; that was for
the time to come. He had dreamt of distinction; that, also, must be
patiently awaited. In the meantime, labour. He enjoyed intellectual
effort; he gloried in the amassing of mental riches.

"To follow Knowledge like a sinking star
Beyond the
utmost bound of human thought--"

these lines were frequently in his mind, and helped to shape his
enthusiasm. Consciously he subdued a great part of himself, binding his
daily life in asceticism. He would not live in London because he
dreaded its temptations. Gladly he adhered to his father's principles
in the matter of food and drink; this helped him to subdue his body, or
at least he thought so. He was happiest when, throwing himself into bed
after some fourteen hours of hard reading, he felt the stupor of utter
weariness creep upon him, with certainty of oblivion until the next
sunrise.

He did not much reflect upon the course of his life hitherto, with its
false starts, its wavering; he had not experience enough to understand
their significance. Of course his father was mainly responsible for
what had so far happe