oing his best to shake off the
clinging misery of sleep. In a little while it had passed, and he tried
to go over in his mind the events of the preceding day. Were they, too,
only fragments of a long dream? Surely so many and strange events could
not have crowded themselves into one period of twelve hours; and for
him, whose days passed with such dreary monotony. The interview with
Maud Enderby seemed so unnaturally long ago; that with Ida Starr, so
impossibly fresh and recent. Yet both had undoubtedly taken place. He,
who but yesterday morning had felt so bitterly his loneliness in the
world, and, above all, the impossibility of what he most longed
for--woman's companionship--found himself all at once on terms of at
least friendly intimacy with two women, both young, both beautiful, yet
so wholly different. Each answered to an ideal which he cherished, and
the two ideals were so diverse, so mutually exclusive. The experience
had left him in a curious frame of mind. For the present, he felt cool,
almost indifferent, to both his new acquaintances. He had asked and
obtained leave to write to Maud Enderby; what on earth could he write
about? How could he address her? He had promised to go and see Ida
Starr, on a most impracticable footing. Was it not almost certain that,
before the day came round, her caprice would have vanished, and his
reception would prove anything but a flattering one? The feelings which
both girls had at the time excited in him seemed artificial; in his
present mood he in vain tried to resuscitate his interest either in the
one or the other. It was as though he had over-exerted his emotional
powers, and they lay exhausted. Weariness was the only reality of which
he was conscious. He must turn his mind to other things. Having
breakfasted, he remembered what day it was, and presently took down a
volume of his Goethe, opening at the Easter morning scene in Faust,
favourite reading with him. This inspired him with a desire to go into
the open air; it was a bright day, and there would be life in the
streets. Just as he began to prepare himself for walking, there came a
knock at his door, and Julian Casti entered.

"Halloa!" Waymark cried. "I thought you told me you were engaged with
your cousin to-day."

"I was, but I sent her a note yesterday to say I was unable to meet
her."

"Then why didn't you write at the same time and tell me you were
coming? I might have gone out for the day."

"I had no inten