Every afternoon he would take the new machines out and fly at sunset over the sandy plains of Long Island, would dine cheaply at some neighboring restaurant, and would return to his flat about ten, go to bed early and be ready for work the next morning.

The only relaxation he allowed himself was the excitement of hating Christine, to which he now devoted a great deal of time and thought.  It was the only thing that gave life any interest.

What was loss of money, after all, he said to himself, for an able-bodied man?  He could bear that well enough, if his life had not been poisoned, if hope hadn’t been taken from him.  She had spoilt him for everything else.  His success, if ever he should succeed, would not bring him what most men wanted of success—­a companion and a home.  He had nothing to work for, and yet nothing to do except work.  It was all his own fault, he said; and blamed her all the more bitterly.  He was glad, he thought, that he had made it impossible for her to have a final interview with him; and in his heart he could not forgive her for not having overcome the obstacles to a meeting which he had set up in the last frenzied days in New York.

“If I were of a revengeful disposition,” he said to himself, “I should ask nothing better than that she should marry Linburne”; and he concluded that he was not revengeful because he found he did not want it.  He made up his mind after the most prolonged consideration that a woman such as Christine exercised the maximum influence for evil; a thoroughly wicked woman could not help inspiring distrust, but a nature like hers had enough good to attach you and yet left you nothing to depend upon.

He read the papers, awaiting the announcement of her marriage, but found no mention of her name except once, toward the end of May, a short paragraph announcing that she had gone out of town for the season.

It was soon after he had read this that he came home earlier than usual and let himself into his little flat.  The day had been successful, a new device in the engine was working well and the company had had a large order from abroad.  And as usual, with the prospect of success had come to him a bitter sense of the emptiness of the future.  He was thinking of Christine, and when he turned the switch of the electric light, there she was.  She was sitting in a large shabby armchair, drawn close to the window, so that she could look out at the river.  She had taken off her hat, and her hair shown particularly golden and her eyes looked brightly blue in the sudden glare of light.

“You’re dreadfully late,” she said, quite as if she had charge of his comings and goings.  “I’ve been here hours and hours and hours.”

Now that he actually saw her before him, it was neither love nor hate that he felt, but an undefinable and overmastering emotion that seemed to petrify him, so that he stood there quite silent with his hand on the switch.