to marry her.  It was shocking to think that he could be so wicked, and then with a thrill of pleasure that it would be much more exciting to run away with him than to be married to him by Father Railston.  But how very wicked of her to think such things, and she was frightened to find that she could not think differently; and with sensations of an elopement clattering in her brain, she sat still striving to restrain her thoughts.

CHAPTER SIX

On leaving her at Victoria, he had walked down the Buckingham Palace Road, not quite knowing where he was going.  Suddenly an idea struck him.  He put up his stick, stopped a hansom, and drove to Georgina; for he was curious to see what impression she would make upon him.  He spent an hour with her, and returned to Berkeley Square to dine alone.  He was sure that he cared no more for Georgina, that she was less than nothing to him.  He dismissed her from his thoughts, and fixed them on Evelyn.  He had said he would send her a book.  It stood next to his hand, on the shelf by the round table where he wrote his articles.  After dinner, he would walk from the dining-room into the library, take down the volume and pack it up, leaving orders that it should be sent off by the first post.

When man ceased to capture women, he reflected, man invented art whereby he might win them.  The first melody blown through a reed pipe was surely intended for woman’s ears.  The first verses were composed in a like intention.  Afterwards man began to take an interest in art for its own sake....  Women, having no necessity for art, have not been artists.  The idea amused him, and he remembered that while Evelyn’s romantic eyes and gold hair were sufficient to win his regard, he had availed himself of a dozen devices to tempt her.  Suddenly his face grew grave, and he asked himself how this flirtation was to end.  As a sufficient excuse for seeing her he was taking music lessons; he wrote to her every other day and often sent her books and music.  They had met in London....  He had been observed walking with her, and at Lady Ascott’s lunch the conversation had suddenly turned on a tall girl with gold hair and an undulating walk.  Pointed observations had been made....  Lady Lovedale had looked none too well pleased.  He didn’t wish to be cynical, but he did want to know whether he was going to fall in love?...  They had now arrived at that point when love-making or an interruption in their intimacy was imperative.  He did not regret having offered her the money to go abroad to study, it was well he should have done so, but he should not have said, “But I’ll go to see you in Paris.”  She was a clever girl, and knew as well as he how such adventures must end....  She was a religious girl, a devout Catholic, and as he had himself been brought up in that religion, he knew how it restrained the sexual passion or fashioned it in the mould of its dogma.  But we are animals first, we are religious