always made plans since he was a small boy; for poverty, and the fact
that he was the eldest son of a large family, had given him the habit
of thinking of spring and summer, autumn and winter, as so many stages
in a prolonged campaign. Although he was still under thirty, this
forecasting habit had marked two semicircular lines above his
eyebrows, which threatened, at this moment, to crease into their
wonted shapes. But instead of settling down to think, he rose, took a
small piece of cardboard marked in large letters with the word OUT,
and hung it upon the handle of his door. This done, he sharpened a
pencil, lit a reading-lamp and opened his book. But still he hesitated
to take his seat. He scratched the rook, he walked to the window; he
parted the curtains, and looked down upon the city which lay, hazily
luminous, beneath him. He looked across the vapors in the direction of
Chelsea; looked fixedly for a moment, and then returned to his chair.
But the whole thickness of some learned counsel's treatise upon Torts
did not screen him satisfactorily. Through the pages he saw a drawing-
room, very empty and spacious; he heard low voices, he saw women's
figures, he could even smell the scent of the cedar log which flamed
in the grate. His mind relaxed its tension, and seemed to be giving
out now what it had taken in unconsciously at the time. He could
remember Mr. Fortescue's exact words, and the rolling emphasis with
which he delivered them, and he began to repeat what Mr. Fortescue had
said, in Mr. Fortescue's own manner, about Manchester. His mind then
began to wander about the house, and he wondered whether there were
other rooms like the drawing-room, and he thought, inconsequently, how
beautiful the bathroom must be, and how leisurely it was--the life of
these well-kept people, who were, no doubt, still sitting in the same
room, only they had changed their clothes, and little Mr. Anning was
there, and the aunt who would mind if the glass of her father's
picture was broken. Miss Hilbery had changed her dress ("although