m,
nobody needed him! at any moment he might begin to hurt vividly. He
might even howl. Nobody would mind. According to all the doctors he
would have excellent reason for howling in a day or so. It recalled what
his spiritual adviser had said of the decline of faith and fidelity, the
degeneration of the age. He beheld himself as a pathetic proof of this;
he, the subtle, able, important, voluptuous, cynical, complex Bindon,
possibly howling, and not one faithful simple creature in all the world
to howl in sympathy. Not one faithful simple soul was there--no shepherd
to pipe to him! Had all such faithful simple creatures vanished from
this harsh and urgent earth? He wondered whether the horrid vulgar crowd
that perpetually went about the city could possibly know what he thought
of them. If they did he felt sure _some_ would try to earn a better
opinion. Surely the world went from bad to worse. It was becoming
impossible for Bindons. Perhaps some day ... He was quite sure that the
one thing he had needed in life was sympathy. For a time he regretted
that he left no sonnets--no enigmatical pictures or something of that
sort behind him to carry on his being until at last the sympathetic
mind should come....

It seemed incredible to him that this that came was extinction. Yet his
sympathetic spiritual guide was in this matter annoyingly figurative and
vague. Curse science! It had undermined all faith--all hope. To go out,
to vanish from theatre and street, from office and dining-place, from
the dear eyes of womankind. And not to be missed! On the whole to leave
the world happier!

He reflected that he had never worn his heart upon his sleeve. Had he
after all been _too_ unsympathetic? Few people could suspect how subtly
profound he really was beneath the mask of that cynical gaiety of his.
They would not understand the loss they had suffered. Elizabeth, for
example, had not suspected....

He had reserved that. His thoughts having come to Elizabeth gravitated
about her for some time. How _little_ Elizabeth understood him!

That thought became intolerable. Before all other things he must set
that right. He realised that there was still something for him to do in
life, his struggle against Elizabeth was even yet not over. He could
never overcome her now, as he had hoped and prayed. But he might still
impress her!

From that idea he expanded. He might impress her profoundly--he might
impress her so that she should for everm