arried him off his feet in this strange and detestable fashion. It
was a dormant sense, without a doubt, which Elizabeth had stirred into
life--the sense of sex, quiescent in him so long, chiefly through
his perfect physical sanity; perhaps, too, in some measure, from his
half-starved imagination. It was significant, though, that once aroused
it burned with surprising and unwavering fidelity. The whole world of
women now were different creatures to him, but they left him as utterly
unmoved as in his unawakened days. It was Elizabeth only he wanted,
craved for fiercely, with all this late-born passion of mingled
sentiment and desire. He felt himself, as he hung round there upon the
pavement, rubbing shoulders with the liveried servants, the loafers,
and the passers-by, a thing to be despised. He was like a whipped dog
fawning back to his master. Yet if only he could persuade her to come
with him, if it were but for an hour! If only she would sit opposite him
in that wonderful little restaurant, where the lights and the music, the
laughter and the wine, were all outward symbols of this new life from
before which her fingers seemed to have torn aside the curtains! His
heart beat with a fierce impatience. He watched the thin stream of
people who left before the play was over, suburbanites mostly, in
a hurry for their trains. Very soon the whole audience followed,
commissionaires were busy with their whistles, the servants eagerly
looking right and left for their masters. And then Elizabeth! She came
out in the midst of half-a-dozen others, brilliant in a wonderful
cloak and dress of turquoise blue, laughing with her friends, to all
appearance the gayest of the party. Tavernake stepped quickly forward,
but at that moment there was a crush and he could not advance. She
passed within a yard of him, escorted by a couple of men, and for a
moment their eyes met. She raised her eyebrows, as though in surprise,
and her recognition was of the slightest. She passed on and entered a
waiting motorcar, accompanied by the two men. Tavernake stood and looked
after it. She did not even glance round. Except for that little gesture
of cold surprise, she had ignored him. Tavernake, scarcely knowing what
he did, turned slowly towards the Strand.

He was face to face now with a crisis before which he seemed powerless.
Men were there in the world to be bullied, cajoled, or swept out of the
way. What did one do with a woman who was kind one moment