prussic
acid. But I just couldn't do it; it would have been like chasing a scrap
of paper--an occupation ignoble for a grown man.

And, as it began, so that matter has remained. I didn't care whether
she had come out of that bedroom or whether she hadn't. It simply didn't
interest me. Florence didn't matter.

I suppose you will retort that I was in love with Nancy Rufford and that
my indifference was therefore discreditable. Well, I am not seeking to
avoid discredit. I was in love with Nancy Rufford as I am in love with
the poor child's memory, quietly and quite tenderly in my American sort
of way. I had never thought about it until I heard Leonora state that I
might now marry her. But, from that moment until her worse than death, I
do not suppose that I much thought about anything else. I don't mean to
say that I sighed about her or groaned; I just wanted to marry her as
some people want to go to Carcassonne.

Do you understand the feeling--the sort of feeling that you must get
certain matters out of the way, smooth out certain fairly negligible
complications before you can go to a place that has, during all your
life, been a sort of dream city? I didn't attach much importance to my
superior years. I was forty-five, and she, poor thing, was only just
rising twenty-two. But she was older than her years and quieter. She
seemed to have an odd quality of sainthood, as if she must inevitably
end in a convent with a white coif framing her face. But she had
frequently told me that she had no vocation; it just simply wasn't
there--the desire to become a nun. Well, I guess that I was a sort of
convent myself; it seemed fairly proper that she should make her vows to
me. No, I didn't see any impediment on the score of age. I dare say no
man does and I was pretty confident that with a little preparation, I
could make a young girl happy. I could spoil her as few young girls have
ever been spoiled; and I couldn't regard myself as personally repulsive.
No man can, or if he ever comes to do so, that is the end of him. But,
as soon as I came out of my catalepsy, I seemed to perceive that my
problem--that what I had to do to prepare myself for getting into
contact with her, was just to get back into contact with life. I had
been kept for twelve years in a rarefied atmosphere; what I then had
to do was a little fighting with real life, some wrestling with men
of business, some travelling amongst larger cities, something harsh,
someth