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ey were properly warned against involving themselves in this love nonsense before they were independent. It was much better.... Everything was going. Not only his work--his scientific career, but the Debating Society, the political movement, all his work for Humanity.... Why not be resolute--even now?... Why not put the thing clearly and plainly to her? Or write? If he wrote now he could get the advantage of the evening at the Library. He must ask her to forgo these walks home--at least until the next examination. _She_ would understand. He had a qualm of doubt whether she would understand.... He grew angry at this possibility. But it was no good mincing matters. If once he began to consider her--Why should he consider her in that way? Simply because she was unreasonable! Lewisham had a transitory gust of anger. Yet that abandonment of the walks insisted on looking mean to him. And she would think it mean. Which was very much worse, somehow. _Why_ mean? Why should she think it mean? He grew angry again. The portly museum policeman who had been watching him furtively, wondering why a student should sit in front of the "Sacrifice of Lystra" and gnaw lips and nails and moustache, and scowl and glare at that masterpiece, saw him rise suddenly to his feet with an air of resolution, spin on his heel, and set off with a quick step out of the gallery. He looked neither to the right nor the left. He passed out of sight down the staircase. "Gone to get some more moustache to eat, I suppose," said the policeman reflectively.... "One 'ud think something had bit him." After some pensive moments the policeman strolled along down the gallery and came to a stop opposite the cartoon. "Figgers is a bit big for the houses," said the policeman, anxious to do impartial justice. "But that's Art. I lay '_e_ couldn't do anything ... not arf so good." CHAPTER XVIII. THE FRIENDS OF PROGRESS MEET. The night next but one after this meditation saw a new order in the world. A young lady dressed in an astrachan-edged jacket and with a face of diminished cheerfulness marched from Chelsea to Clapham alone, and Lewisham sat in the flickering electric light of the Education Library staring blankly over a business-like pile of books at unseen things. The arrangement had not been effected without friction, the explanation had proved difficult. Evidently she did not appreciate the full seriousness of Lewisham's mediocre
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