now the best hours of his life--hours strangely tense and strangely
personal--were passed in that Kensington drawing-room. She was to him
like the light of a shrine; he might kneel and adore from afar, but
he might not approach. The goddess had come to him like the moon to
Endymion. He knew nothing, not even if he were welcome. Each visit
was the same as the preceding. A sweet but exasperating
changelessness reigned in that drawing-room--that pretty drawing-room
where mother and daughter sat in sweet naturalness, removed from the
grossness and meanness of life as he knew it. Neither illicit
whispering nor affectation of reserve, only the charm of strict
behaviour; unreal and strange was the refinement, material and
mental, in which they lived. And for a time the charm sufficed;
desire was at rest. But she had been to see him, however at variance
such a visit, such event seemed with her present demeanour. And
she must come again! In increasing restlessness he conned all the
narrow chances of meeting her, of speaking to her alone. But no
accident varied the even tenor of their lives, the calm lake-like
impassibility of their relations, and in last resort he urged Frank
to give a dance or an At Home. And how ardently he pleaded, one
afternoon, sitting face to face with mother and daughter. Inwardly
agitated, but with outward calm, he impressed upon them many reasons
for their being of the party. The charm of the Temple, the river, and
glitter of light, the novel experience of bachelors' quarters....
They promised to come.




CHAPTER V