g.

To-night he felt that every one needs love first--that all the other
human needs come after that great necessity. He had thought himself a
man full of self-knowledge, full of knowledge of others. But he had not
known himself. Perhaps even now the real man was hiding somewhere, far
down, shrinking away for fear of being known, for fear of being dragged
up into the light.

He sought for this man, almost with violence.

A weariness lay beneath his violence to-night, a physical fatigue such
as he sometimes felt after work. It had been produced, no doubt, by the
secret anger he had so long controlled, the secret but intense curiosity
which was not yet satisfied, and which still haunted him and tortured
him. This curiosity he now strove to expel from his mind, telling
himself that he had no right to it. He had wished to preserve Vere just
as she was, to keep her from all outside influences. And now he asked
the real man why he had wished it? Had it been merely the desire of
the literary godfather to cherish a pretty and promising talent? Or had
something of the jealous spirit so brutally proclaimed to him that
night by the Marchesino really entered into the desire? This torturing
curiosity to know what had happened at the Festa surely betrayed the
existence of some such spirit.

He must get rid of it.

He began to walk slowly up and down the little balcony, turning every
instant like a beast in a cage. It seemed to him that the real man had
indeed lain in hiding, but that he was coming forth reluctantly into the
light.

Possibly he had been drifting without knowing it towards some nameless
folly. He was not sure. To-night he felt uncertain of himself and of
everything, almost like an ignorant child facing the world. And he felt
almost afraid of himself. Was it possible that he, holding within him so
much of the knowledge, so much of pride, could ever draw near to a crazy
absurdity, a thing that the whole world would laugh at and despise? Had
he drawn near to it. Was he near it now?

He thought of all his recent intercourse with Vere, going back mentally
to the day in spring when he arrived in Naples. He followed the record
day by day until he reached that afternoon when he had returned from
Paris, when he came to the island to find Vere alone, when she read
to him her poems. Very pitilessly, despite the excitement still raging
within him, he examined that day, that night, recalling every incident,
recalling every