Gex, was in love; and, _horribile dictu!_ in love with two
women at once. It was Oriental, Mormonic, New Century, what you will;
but there it was. I am ashamed to avow that if, at that moment, both
women had appeared before me and said "Marry us," I should have--well,
reflected seriously on the proposal. I had passed through curious enough
experiences, Heaven knows, already; but none so baffling as this. The
two women came alternately and knocked at my heart, and whispered in my
ear their irrefutable claims to my love. I listened throbbingly to each,
and to each I said, "I love you."

I was in an extraordinary psychological predicament. Lola had remarked,
"You are not quite alive even yet." I had come to complete life too
suddenly. This was the result. I got up and paced the bird-cage, which
the house-agents termed a reception-room, and wondered whether I were
going mad. It was not as if one woman represented the flesh and the
other the spirit. Then I might have seen the way to a decision. But both
had the large nature that comprises all. I could not exalt one in
any way to the abasement of the other. All my inherited traditions,
prejudices, predilections, all my training ranged me on the side of
Eleanor. I was clamouring for the real. Was she not the incarnation
of the real? Her very directness piqued me to a perverse and delicious
obliquity. And I knew, as I knew when I parted from her months before,
that it was only for me to awaken things that lay virginally dormant.
On the other hand stood Lola, with her magnetic seduction, her rich
atmosphere, her great wide simplicity of heart, holding out arms into
which I longed to throw myself.

It was monstrous, abnormal. I hated the abominable indelicacy of
weighing one against the other, as I had hated the idea of their
meeting.

I paced my bird-cage until it shrank to the size of a rat-trap. Then
I clapped on my hat and fled down into the streets. I jumped into the
first cab I saw and bade the driver take me to Barbara's Building.
Campion suddenly occurred to me as the best antidote to the poison that
had entered my blood.

I found him alone, clearing from the table the remains of supper. In
spite of his soul's hospitable instincts, he stared at me.

"Why, what the----?"

"Yes, I know. You're surprised to see me bursting in on you like a wild
animal. I'm not going to do it every night, but this evening I claim a
bit of our old friendship."

"Claim it all, my dear