to notice his preoccupation; she gave an exclamation of what sounded
like surprise, and herself looked steadily at the approaching pair.
Thus they went forward to a meeting which the young man had imagined
to himself in many ways, but not in this. The moment he had waited for
had come; and now he wished himself miles away. Meanwhile, they walked
on, in a brutal, matter-of-fact fashion, and at a fairish pace, though
each step he took was an event, and his feet were as heavy and awkward
as if they did not belong to him.

The other two sauntered towards them, without haste. The man she was
with had his arm through hers, her hand in his left hand, while in his
right he twirled a cane. They were not speaking; she looked before
her, rather listlessly, with dark, indifferent eyes. To see this, to
see also that she was taller and broader than he had believed, and in
full daylight somewhat sallow, Maurice had first to conquer an
aversion to look at all, on account of the open familiarity of their
attitude. It was not like this that he had dreamt of finding her. And
so it happened that when, without a word to him, his companion crossed
the path and confronted the other two, he only lingered for an
instant, in an agony of indecision, and then, by an impulse over which
he had no control, walked on and stood out of earshot.

He drew a deep breath, like one who has escaped a danger; but almost
simultaneously he bit his lip with mortification: could any power on
earth make it clear to him why he had acted in this way? All
his thoughts had been directed towards this moment for so long, only
to take this miserable end. A string of contemptuous epithets for
himself rose to his lips. But when he looked back at the group, the
reason of his folly was apparent to him; at the sight of this other
beside her, a sharp twinge of jealousy had run through him and