he had been companioned by a strange, unusual feeling of being
understood, of having the better part of him rightly appraised, and even
too greatly appreciated. And this feeling had warmed his mind and heart
almost as a generous wine warms the body.

"I'm sure it is true."

He put down his cup. Suddenly there had come to him the desire to go
away, to be alone. He saw the curtains moving gently by the windows, and
heard the distant, softened sound of the voices and the traffic of the
city. And he thought of the river, and the sunset, and the barges
swinging on the hurrying tide, and of the multitudes of eddies in the
water. Like those eddies were the thoughts within his mind, the feelings
within his heart. Were they not being driven onwards by the current of
time, onwards towards the spacious sea of action? Abruptly his heart was
invaded by a longing for largeness, a longing that was essential in his
nature, but that sometimes lay quiescent, for largeness of view, such as
the Bedouin has upon the desert that he loves and he belongs to;
largeness of emotion, largeness of action. Largeness was
manliness--largeness of thinking and largeness of living. Not the
drawing-room of the world, but the desert of the world, with its
exquisite oases, was the right place for a man. Yet here he was in a
drawing-room. At this moment he longed to go out from it. But he longed
also to catch this woman by the hand and draw her out with him. And he
remembered how Browning, the poet, had loved a woman who lay always in a
shrouded room, too ill to look on the sunshine or breathe the wide airs
of the world; and how he carried her away and took her to the peaks of
the Apennines. The mere thought of such a change in a life was like a
cry of joy.