by ardent women. And he said to himself
that Lady Holme was the one woman who could set free, if the occasion
came, this passionate, unusual and surely admirable captive at present
chained within him, doomed to inactivity and the creeping weakness that
comes from enforced repose.

Carey's passion for Lady Holme had come into being shortly before
her marriage. No one knew much about it, or about the rupture of all
relations between him and the Holmes which had eventually taken place.
But the fact that Carey had lost his head about Lady Holme was known
to half London. For Carey, when carried away, was singularly reckless;
singularly careless of consequences and of what people thought. It was
difficult to influence him, but when influenced he was almost painfully
open in his acknowledgment of the power that had reached him. As a rule,
however, despite his apparent definiteness, his decisive violence, there
seemed to be something fluid in his character, something that divided
and flowed away from anything which sought to grasp and hold it. He
had impetus but not balance; swiftness, but a swiftness that was
uncontrolled. He resembled a machine without a brake.

It was soon after his rupture with the Holmes that his intimates began
to notice that he was becoming inclined to drink too much. When Pierce
returned to London from Rome he was immediately conscious of the slight
alteration in his friend. Once he remonstrated with Carey about it.
Carey was silent for a moment. Then he said abruptly:

"My heart wants to be drowned."

Lord Holme hated Carey. Yet Lady Holme had not loved him; though she had
not objected to him more than to other men because he loved her. She had
been brought up in a society which is singularly free from prejudices,
which has no time to study carefully questions of so-called honour,
which has little real religious feeling, and a desire for gaiety which
perhaps takes the place of a desire for morals. Intrigues are one of the
chief amusements of this society, which oscillates from London to Paris
as the pendulum of a clock oscillates from right to left. Lady Holme,
however, happened to be protected doubly against the dangers--or joys
by the way--to which so many of her companions fell cheerful, and even
chattering, victims. She had a husband who though extremely stupid was
extremely masterful, and, for the time at any rate, she sincerely loved
him. She was a faithful wife and had no desire to be anythi