coming home with his lungs full of liberty.

It must not be inferred that the Professor's domestic relations were
defective: they were in fact so complete that it was almost
impossible to get away from them. It is the happy husbands who are
really in bondage; the little rift within the lute is often a
passage to freedom. Marriage had given the Professor exactly what he
had sought in it; a comfortable lining to life. The impossibility of
rising to sentimental crises had made him scrupulously careful not
to shirk the practical obligations of the bond. He took as it were a
sociological view of his case, and modestly regarded himself as a
brick in that foundation on which the state is supposed to rest.
Perhaps if Mrs. Linyard had cared about entomology, or had taken
sides in the war over the transmission of acquired characteristics,
he might have had a less impersonal notion of marriage; but he was
unconscious of any deficiency in their relation, and if consulted
would probably have declared that he didn't want any woman bothering
with his beetles. His real life had always lain in the universe of
thought, in that enchanted region which, to those who have lingered
there, comes to have so much more colour and substance than the
painted curtain hanging before it. The Professor's particular veil
of Maia was a narrow strip of homespun woven in a monotonous
pattern; but he had only to lift it to step into an empire.

This unseen universe was thronged with the most seductive shapes:
the Professor moved Sultan-like through a seraglio of ideas. But of
all the lovely apparitions that wove their spells about him, none
had ever worn quite so persuasive an aspect as this latest
favourite. For the others were mostly rather grave companions,
serious-minded and elevating enough to have passed muster in a