Their follies we can tolerate and view even with compassion; but their
joys are unendurable. Joy separates men with impassable barriers. It
transfigures beggars into Lazaruses lying at rest in Abraham's bosom. We
view them from afar off and their contentment increases the burning of
our torment. No man has yet discovered how to share his joy. Only a god
could say, "My joy I give unto you."

They had not seen him go. That was the neglect that rankled. Even though
they had seen him, they would not have cared; they would have done
nothing to delay him. They were past all caring. Like tired ships,
having weathered many storms, they had furled their sails in the harbor
of desire. He had slipped by them like a demon vessel, all canvas
spread, out-going on his endless voyage.

From the door, before he left, he had looked back. The room was a-silver
with twilight. The garden beyond was still vaguely golden. The pond
glimmered darkly like a magic mirror. The murmur of London wove patterns
on the silence. From the hall across the silver of the dusk, an
intrusive shaft of light pointed like a finger at those two entranced,
who had refound the peace that time had scattered.

Even though Pollock had not returned, he himself could never have
married her. There are violations of the austerity of the soul which the
urgings of the flesh cannot accomplish. In the vivid flash of reality
that had visited him he knew that now. He was angry--bitterly angry. But
his anger was not for her; it was for himself. He could be so
audaciously prophetic in the affairs of others. He could advise them and
well-nigh compel them to conserve themselves for kingdoms of whose
coming there was neither the slightest hope nor warning. His penetrating
optimism could foresee the daringly incredible, so that it almost seemed
in the case of Maisie that his optimism had created out of the
incredible a fact. He could work these miracles of restraint for others;
himself he could not restrain. His road ran straight as destiny, yet any
lazy kingdom of mildness in a woman's eyes was capable of luring him
aside. In his abasement he lost all faith in his self-knowledge. Hadn't
he always been the victim of an imagination which had tricked mere
liking into a resemblance to passion? He strutted, gestured, despaired
till he almost persuaded himself that he was the part he was acting. But
had he the faintest conception of what real love meant? Hadn't he always
acted a part? Y