to begin to-morrow; and it seemed to her that when
once the night was gone, she would be able to collect her thoughts with
clearness, that the morning would bring some lucid explanation of the
disturbance that she felt to-day. Then it occurred to her that she would
follow Gerty's example and seek a distraction in the shops, and she took
a cab and drove to her milliner's, where she tried on a number of
absurdly impossible hats. She bought one at last, to realise immediately
as she left the shop that she would never persuade herself to wear it
because she felt that it gave her an air of Gerty's "smartness" which
sat like an impertinence upon her own individual charm. Glancing at her
watch she found that only two hours had gone since she left the house,
and turning up the street she walked on with a step which seemed
striving to match in energy her rapid thoughts.

"You have effaced every other impression of my life," he had said to her
yesterday; and as she repeated the words she remembered the quiver of
his mouth under his short brown moustache, the playful irony of the
smile that had met her own. Had he meant more or less than the spoken
phrase? Was the strength of his handclasp sincere? Or was the caressing
sound of his voice a lie, as Gerty believed? Was he, in truth, fighting
under all the shams of life for the liberation of his soul? or was there
only the emptiness of sense within him, after all? She felt his burning
look again, and flinched at the memory. "Every glance, every gesture,
every word speaks to me of things which he cannot utter, which are
unutterable," and yet even with the assurance she felt as if she were
living in an obscure and painful dream--as if the element of unreality
were a part of his smile, of his voice, of the feverish longing from
which she told herself that she would presently awake. It was as if she
moved an illusion among illusions, and yet felt the unreal quality of
herself and of the things outside.

CHAPTER IX

THE TRIUMPH OF THE EGO

He came punctually at three o'clock on the following afternoon, and even
as he entered the room, she was conscious of a slight disappointment
because, in some perfectly indefinable way, he was different from what
she had hoped that he would be.

"This is the first peaceful moment I have had for twenty-four hours," he
remarked, as he flung himself into a chair before the small wood fire;
"a man I knew was inconsiderate enough to die and make