“Would have to reduce work on front facade to putting in new arched entrance.  Buttresses would take the place of columns.

“The bow-window could remain.

“The roof to be heightened somewhat.  The front projection would throw the front rooms into almost total darkness.”

“But why not a light timber lantern tower?” thought John.  “Yes, that would get over the difficulty.  Now if we could only manage to keep my front ... if my design for the front cannot be preserved, I might as well abandon the whole thing!  And then?”

And then life seemed to him void of meaning and light.  He might as well settle down and marry....

His face contracted in an expression of anger.  He rose from the table, and he looked round the room.  Its appearance was singularly jarring, shattering as it did his dream of the cloister, and up-building in fancy the horrid fabric of marriage and domesticity.  The room seemed to him a symbol—­with the great bed, voluptuous, the corpulent arm-chair, the toilet-table shapeless with muslin—­of the hideous laws of the world and the flesh, ever at variance and at war, and ever defeating the indomitable aspirations of the soul.  John ordered his room to be changed; and, in the face of much opposition from his mother, who declared that he would never be able to sleep there, and would lose his health, he selected a narrow room at the end of the passage.  He would have no carpet.  He placed a small iron bed against the wall; two plain chairs, a screen to keep off the draught from the door, a basin-stand such as you might find in a ship’s cabin, and a prie-dieu, were all the furniture he permitted himself.

“Oh, what a relief!” he murmured.  “Now there is line, there is definite shape.  That formless upholstery frets my eye as false notes grate on my ear;” and, becoming suddenly conscious of the presence of God, he fell on his knees and prayed.  He prayed that he might be guided aright in his undertaking, and that, if it were conducive to the greater honour and glory of God, he might be permitted to found a monastery, and that he might be given strength to surmount all difficulties.

Next morning, calm in mind, and happier, he went downstairs to the drawing-room, a small book in his hand, an historical work of great importance by the Venerable Bede, intitled Vita beatorum abbatum Wiremuthensium, et Girvensiuem, Benedicti Ceolfridi, Easteriwini, Sigfridi atque Hoetberti.  But he could not keep his attention fixed on the book, it appeared to him dreary and stupid.  His thoughts wandered.  He thought of Kitty—­of how beautiful she looked on the background of red geraniums, with the soft yellow cat on her shoulder, and he wondered which of the four great painters, Manet, Degas, Monet, or Renoir would have best rendered the brightness and lightness, the intense colour vitality of that motive for a picture.  He thought of her young eyes, of the pale hands, of the sudden, sharp laugh; and finally he took up one of her novels, “Red as a Rose is She.”  He read it, and found it very entertaining.