ng it all!--to slip into collecting sensations
as my father collected snuff-boxes. I want Effie to have Givre--it's my
grandmother's, you know, to do as she likes with; and I've understood
lately that if it belonged to me it would gradually gobble me up. I want
to get out of it, into a life that's big and ugly and struggling. If
I can extract beauty out of THAT, so much the better: that'll prove my
vocation. But I want to MAKE beauty, not be drowned in the ready-made,
like a bee in a pot of honey."

Darrow knew that he was being appealed to for corroboration of these
views and for encouragement in the course to which they pointed. To his
own ears his answers sounded now curt, now irrelevant: at one moment he
seemed chillingly indifferent, at another he heard himself launching out
on a flood of hazy discursiveness. He dared not look at Owen, for fear
of detecting the lad's surprise at these senseless transitions. And
through the confusion of his inward struggles and outward loquacity he
heard the ceaseless trip-hammer beat of the question: "What in God's
name shall I do?"...

To get back to the house before Anna's return seemed his most pressing
necessity. He did not clearly know why: he simply felt that he ought to
be there. At one moment it occurred to him that Miss Viner might want to
speak to him alone--and again, in the same flash, that it would probably
be the last thing she would want...At any rate, he felt he ought to try
to speak to HER; or at least be prepared to do so, if the chance should
occur...

Finally, toward four, he told his companion that he had some letters
on his mind and must get back to the house and despatch them before the
ladies returned. He left Owen with the beater and walked on to the edge
of the covert. At the park gates he struck obliquely through the trees,
following a grass avenue at the end of which he had caught a glimpse
of the roof of the chapel. A grey haze had blotted out the sun and the
still air clung about him tepidly. At length the house-front raised
before him its expanse of damp-silvered brick, and he was struck afresh
by the high decorum of its calm lines and soberly massed surfaces. It
made him feel, in the turbid coil of his fears and passions, like a
muddy tramp forcing his way into some pure sequestered shrine...

By and bye, he knew, he should have to think the complex horror out,
slowly, systematically, bit by bit; but for the moment it was whirling
him about so fa