at once the first and last place in which to be
friendly with a pretty woman. Revelation was alighting like a bird in
his heart, singing: 'Elle est ton reve! Elle est ton reve! Sometimes
this seemed natural, sometimes ludicrous--a bad case of elderly rapture.
Having once been ostracised by Society, he had never since had any real
regard for conventional morality; but the idea of a love which she could
never return--and how could she at his age?--hardly mounted beyond his
subconscious mind. He was full, too, of resentment, at the waste and
loneliness of her life. Aware of being some comfort to her, and of the
pleasure she clearly took in their many little outings, he was amiably
desirous of doing and saying nothing to destroy that pleasure. It was
like watching a starved plant draw up water, to see her drink in his
companionship. So far as they could tell, no one knew her address except
himself; she was unknown in Paris, and he but little known, so that
discretion seemed unnecessary in those walks, talks, visits to concerts,
picture-galleries, theatres, little dinners, expeditions to Versailles,
St. Cloud, even Fontainebleau. And time fled--one of those full months
without past to it or future. What in his youth would certainly have
been headlong passion, was now perhaps as deep a feeling, but
far gentler, tempered to protective companionship by admiration,
hopelessness, and a sense of chivalry--arrested in his veins at least so
long as she was there, smiling and happy in their friendship, and always
to him more beautiful and spiritually responsive: for her philosophy
of life seemed to march in admirable step with his own, conditioned
by emotion more than by reason, ironically mistrustful, susceptible
to beauty, almost passionately humane and tolerant, yet subject to
instinctive rigidities of which as a mere man he was less capable. And
during all this companionable month he never quite lost that feeling
with which he had set out on the first day as if to visit an adored work
of art, a well-nigh impersonal desire. The future--inexorable pendant
to the present he took care not to face, for fear of breaking up his
untroubled manner; but he made plans to renew this time in places still
more delightful, where the sun was hot and there were strange things
to see and paint. The end came swiftly on the 20th of January with a
telegram:

"Have enlisted in Imperial Yeomanry. JOLLY."

Jolyon received it just as he was setting out