arms folded on his breast and his eyes fixed on the deck, he let
the darkness catch him unawares in the midst of a meditation on the
mechanism of sentiment and the springs of passion. And all the
time he had an abiding consciousness of her bodily presence. The
effect on his senses had been so penetrating that in the middle of
the night, rousing up suddenly, wide-eyed in the darkness of his
cabin, he did not create a faint mental vision of her person for
himself, but, more intimately affected, he scented distinctly the
faint perfume she used, and could almost have sworn that he had
been awakened by the soft rustle of her dress. He even sat up
listening in the dark for a time, then sighed and lay down again,
not agitated but, on the contrary, oppressed by the sensation of
something that had happened to him and could not be undone.



CHAPTER III



In the afternoon he lounged into the editorial office, carrying
with affected nonchalance that weight of the irremediable he had
felt laid on him suddenly in the small hours of the night--that
consciousness of something that could no longer be helped. His
patronising friend informed him at once that he had made the
acquaintance of the Moorsom party last night. At the Dunsters, of
course. Dinner.

"Very quiet. Nobody there. It was much better for the business.
I say . . ."