of what use would it be to him? He was capable both of extravagant conceit,
and of the most boundless temporary disgust with his own doings and ideas.
Such a disgust seemed to be mounting now through all his veins, taking
all the savour out of life and work. No doubt it would be the same to
the end,--the politician in him just strong enough to ruin the man of
letters--the man of letters always ready to distract and paralyse the
politician. And as for the book, there also he had been the victim of
a double mind. He had endeavoured to make it popular, as Chateaubriand
made the great argument of the _Genie du Christianisme_ popular, by the
introduction of an element of poetry and romance. For the moment he was
totally out of love with the result. What was the plain man to make of it?
And nowadays the plain man settles everything.

Well!--if the book came to grief, it was not only he that would
suffer.--Poor Eleanor!--poor, kind, devoted Eleanor!

Yet as the thought of her passed through his meditations, a certain
annoyance mingled with it. What if she had been helping to keep him, all
this time, in a fool's paradise--hiding the truth from him by this soft
enveloping sympathy of hers?

His mind started these questions freely. Yet only to brush them away with a
sense of shame. Beneath his outer controlling egotism there were large and
generous elements in his mixed nature. And nothing could stand finally
against the memory of that sweet all-sacrificing devotion which had been
lavished upon himself and his work all the winter!

What right had he to accept it? What did it mean? Where was it leading?

He guessed pretty shrewdly what had been the speculations of the friends