the sitting at Gouache's studio and the first of January he had only
once made an attempt to find her at home, and that attempt had failed.
He had not even seen her passing in the street, and he had not been
conscious of any uncontrollable desire to catch a glimpse of her at any
price.

But he had not forgotten her existence as he would certainly have
forgotten that of a wholly indifferent person in the same time. On the
contrary, he had thought of her frequently and had indulged in many
speculations concerning her, wondering among other matters why he did
not take more trouble to see her since she occupied his thoughts so
much. He did not know that he was in reality hesitating, for he would
not have acknowledged to himself that he could be in danger of falling
seriously in love. He was too young to admit such a possibility, and the
character which he admired and meant to assume was altogether too cold
and superior to such weaknesses. To do him justice, he was really not of
the sort to fall in love at first sight. Persons capable of a
self-imposed dualism rarely are, for the second nature they build up on
the foundation of their own is never wholly artificial. The disposition
to certain modes of thought and habits of bearing is really present, as
is sufficiently proved by their admiration of both. Very shy persons,
for instance, invariably admire very self-possessed ones, and in trying
to imitate them occasionally exhibit a cold-blooded arrogance which is
amazing. Timothy Titmouse secretly looks up to Don Juan as his ideal,
and after half a lifetime of failure outdoes his model, to the horror of
his friends. Dionysus masks as Hercules, and the fox is sometimes not
unsuccessful in his saint's disguise. Those who have been intimate with
a great actor know that the characters he plays best are not all
assumed; there is a little of each in his own nature. There is a touch
of the real Othello in Salvini--there is perhaps a strain of the
melancholy Scandinavian in English Irving.

To be short, Orsino Saracinesca was too enthusiastic to be wholly cold,
and too thoughtful to be thoroughly enthusiastic. He saw things
differently according to his moods, and being dissatisfied, he tried to
make one mood prevail constantly over the other. In a mean nature the
double view often makes an untruthful individual; in one possessing
honourable instincts it frequently leads to unhappiness. Affectation
then becomes aspiration and the man'