's sang-froid. He was as cold as a block of stone. Her heart
cried out against him because he could not see why she had said "No" to
him, because he believed her! She wanted to cry, but did not dare.

"I told him we were worried," she said, indifferently.

"So we were." Philip was cheerful and friendly.

Lawrence buried himself from them both, and sat brooding, clothed in the
blackness that blindness brought when it suddenly loomed before him as
the wall between him and his life's desires. The brief instant Claire
had been in his arms had made him feel that his life was intolerable
without her, and that blindness was the curse of a double living death.
She had told him that she did not love him. She had struggled to be
free.

Lawrence failed to read Claire aright because he had not seen her, and
because his blindness made him uncertain of himself.

That was the truth of it all, the awful truth of his life.

He was always uncertain of himself because he was afraid of blindness.
He strutted, boasted, lied, and above all pretended to himself that he
believed his hard philosophy because he was afraid, afraid of failing to
do the things he wanted to do. He saw himself clearly now, he was a
coward, a deceiving ape, a monkey caught in the terror of tangling
roots, and denying it. He barked like a frightened dog, at the thing
that was his master. He was gripped by life, tortured by life, denied
death by life, and cheated by life of living. His imagination, fired by
his passion, leaped into play, and he felt himself a thousand times a
slave, a chained prisoner in the hand of circumstance.

Philip was laughing gaily, and talking to Claire, who listened,
answered, and was all the while lost in her own thought. When he had
entered, Philip had looked quickly at the two to see if there was aught
between them, and had found Lawrence colder, more despondent than ever.
He told himself that Lawrence had evidently pleaded with Claire for her
love and been denied. At least, this blind man had not been successful,
and Philip could afford to be good-humored. The more agreeable he was,
the more Claire would turn to him from that dark, ungracious form
yonder. His would be the victory of pleasant manners. Therefore he
talked, gladly, smilingly, while Claire listened, or seemed to listen.

She was rebellious at the fear which had made her cry "No" to Lawrence,
and at the same time glad that she had done so, afraid of the future,
exaspera