reading,
tobacco, and the long, blind, dogged tramps he took in town. But here,
to-night, in the rain, one stood every chance of walking off the cliffs;
and he was sick of reading himself sightless over the sort of books sent
wholesale to Shotover; and he was already too ill at ease, physically,
to make smoking endurable.

Were it not for a half-defiant, half-sullen dread of the coming night,
he might have put it from his mind in spite of the slowly increasing
nervous tension and the steady dull consciousness of desire. He drew
another Sirdar from his case and sat staring at the rain-smeared night,
twisting the frail fragrant cigarette to bits between his fingers.

After a while he began to walk monotonously to and fro the length of the
corridor, like a man timing his steps to the heavy ache of body or
mind. Once he went as far as his own door, entered, and stepping to the
wash-basin, let the icy water run over hands and wrists. This sometimes
helped to stimulate and soothe him; it did now, for a while--long enough
to change the current of his thoughts to the girl he had hoped might
have the imprudence to return for a tryst, innocent enough in itself,
yet unconventional and unreasonable enough to prove attractive to them
both.

Probably she wouldn't come; she had kept her fluffy skirts clear of him
since Cup Day--which simply corroborated his vague estimate of her.
Had she done the contrary, his estimate would have been the same; for,
unconsciously but naturally, he had prejudged her. A girl who could
capture Quarrier at full noontide, and in the face of all Manhattan,
was a girl equipped for anything she dared--though she was probably too
clever to dare too much; a girl to be interested in, to amuse and be
amused by; a girl to be reckoned with. His restlessness and his fever
subdued by the icy water, he stood drying his hands, thinking, coolly,
how close he had come to being seriously in love with this young girl,
whose attitude was always a curious temptation, whose smile was a
charming provocation, whose youth and beauty were to him a perpetual
challenge. He admitted to himself, calmly, that he had never seen a
woman he cared as much for; that for the brief moment of his declaration
he had known an utterly new emotion, which inevitably must have become
the love he had so quietly declared it to be. He had never before felt
as he felt then, cared as he cared then. Anything had been possible
for him at that time--any