to renew that search which men and women keep up incessantly until they
find what they seek. She knew this also but never permitted herself to see
it clearly.

He was pleased with her but not proud of her. He was not exactly ashamed of
his relation with her but--well, he never relaxed his precautions for
keeping it conventionally concealed. He still had a room at his club and
occupied it occasionally. He laughed at himself, despised himself in
a--gentle, soothing way. But he excused himself to himself with earnestness
despite his sarcasms at his own expense. And for the most of the time he
was content--so well, so comfortably content that if his mind had not been
so nervously active he would have taken on the form and look of settled
middle-life.

There was just the one saving quality--his mental alertness. All his life
he had had insatiable intellectual curiosity. It had kept him from wasting
his time at play when he was a boy. It had kept him from plunging deeply
into dissipation when youth was hot in his veins. It was now keeping him
from the sluggard's fate.

* * * * *

On the last day of January--six weeks after his thirtieth birthday--he came
home earlier than usual, as they were going to the theatre and were to dine
at seven. He found Alice in bed and the doctor sitting beside her.

"You'll have to get some one else to go with you, I'm afraid," she said
with good-humoured resignation, a trifle over-acted. "My cold is worse and
the doctor says I must stay in bed."