awakened them to the vanity of realism; and they had taken their pictures to a neighbouring tower, and at the top of it made a holocaust of all their abominable endeavour.  And a few days after, two faded human beings had presented themselves at Ulick’s lodgings in Bloomsbury, seemingly at once unhappy and excited, and professing their complete willingness to accept the gospel of life according to Blake.  It was the man who did the talking, the woman, who was dressed in olive-green garments, acquiesced in what he said.  They were tired of materialism; they had trudged that bleak road till they were weary, and now they desired Blake, submission to Blake, and were therefore disappointed when Ulick explained that Blake’s doctrine was not subordination to Blake, but the very opposite, the development of self, the cultivation of personal will.

“It was clear to me,” Ulick said, “that the woman had abased herself before the man, that she ate what he ate, drank what he drank, thought what he thought, so I decided that we should begin with first principles; that the woman should decide for herself, without referring to her husband, what she should eat for dinner.  But after some efforts to attain sufficient personal will, she confessed her incapacity, and I therefore proposed to the husband that she should be kept in her room until she had regained her will.  They went away hopeful, but he called a few days after to tell me that the experiment had failed.  For after striving for many hours to decide between soles and plaice, she had burst into tears, and I felt I could not advise him further.”

It had seemed a pity to ask Ulick how much of this story was true, how much invention; and it was a remembrance of the will-less lady in the olive-green gown that caused Evelyn’s face to light up into smiles as she stood at the window watching for his coming.

Her excuse for not marrying Owen was that she would have to retire from the stage.  But she was not convinced that that was the real reason.  There seemed to be another reason at the back of her mind which her reason could not drag out.  She tried again and again, but it eluded her, and it was frightening to find that she had so little knowledge of the motives that had determined her life.  Feeling that she must change her thoughts, she asked herself what a man like Ulick, of spiritual temperament, but uninfected with religious dogma, would think of her relations with Owen.  “Ah, that was the front door bell!” She waited in a delicious tremble of expectation, and the servant announcing Sir Owen awoke her, and with a shock as painful as if she had been struck on the nape of the neck.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE