lusion. He could not persuade himself
that he was seeking for love, for any kind of unison or communion. He
knew well enough that the thought of any loving, any sort of real coming
together between himself and anybody or anything, was just objectionable
to him. No--he was not moving _towards_ anything: he was moving almost
violently away from everything. And that was what he wanted. Only
that. Only let him _not_ run into any sort of embrace with anything or
anybody--this was what he asked. Let no new connection be made between
himself and anything on earth. Let all old connections break. This was
his craving.

Yet he struggled under it this morning as under the lid of a tomb. The
terrible sudden weight of inertia! He knew the tray stood ready by the
bed: he knew the automobile would be at the door at eight o'clock, for
Lady Franks had said so, and he half divined that the servant had also
said so: yet there he lay, in a kind of paralysis in this bed. He
seemed for the moment to have lost his will. Why go forward into more
nothingness, away from all that he knew, all he was accustomed to and
all he belonged to?

However, with a click he sat up. And the very instant he had poured his
coffee from the little silver coffee-pot into his delicate cup, he was
ready for anything and everything. The sense of silent adventure took
him, the exhilarated feeling that he was fulfilling his own
inward destiny. Pleasant to taste was the coffee, the bread, the
honey--delicious.

The man brought his clothes, and again informed him that the automobile
would be at the door at eight o'clock: or at least so he made out.

"I can walk," said Aaron.

"Milady ha comandato l'automobile," said the man softly.

It was evident that if Milady had ordered it, so it must be.

So Aaron left the still-sleeping house, and got into the soft and
luxurious car. As he dropped through the park he wondered that Sir
William and Lady Franks should be so kind to him: a complete stranger.
But so it was. There he sat in their car. He wondered, also, as he ran
over the bridge and into the city, whether this soft-running automobile
would ever rouse the socialistic bile of the work-people. For the first
time in his life, as he sat among the snug cushions, he realised what
it might be to be rich and uneasy: uneasy, even if not afraid, lurking
there inside an expensive car.--Well, it wasn't much of a sensation
anyhow: and riches were stuffy, like wadded upholstery