So was being written a book such as the world had never seen!

But the girl who came so moodily to bring him refreshment, and went so moodily away, never in these days caught a glimpse of that which she was seeking.

Since the morning when he had left her abruptly, Hilary had made a point of being out in the afternoons and not returning till past six o’clock.  By this device he put off facing her and himself, for he could no longer refuse to see that he had himself to face.  In the few minutes of utter silence when the girl sat beside him, magnetic, quivering with awakening force, he had found that the male in him was far from dead.  It was no longer vague, sensuous feeling; it was warm, definite desire.  The more she was in his thoughts, the less spiritual his feeling for this girl of the people had become.

In those days he seemed much changed to such as knew him well.  Instead of the delicate, detached, slightly humorous suavity which he had accustomed people to expect from him, the dry kindliness which seemed at once to check confidence and yet to say, ’If you choose to tell me anything, I should never think of passing judgment on you, whatever you have done’—­instead of that rather abstracted, faintly quizzical air, his manner had become absorbed and gloomy.  He seemed to jib away from his friends.  His manner at the “Pen and Ink” was wholly unsatisfying to men who liked to talk.  He was known to be writing a new book; they suspected him of having “got into a hat”—­this Victorian expression, found by Mr. Balladyce in some chronicle of post-Thackerayan manners, and revived by him in his incomparable way, as who should say, ’What delicious expressions those good bourgeois had!’ now flourished in second childhood.

In truth, Hilary’s difficulty with his new book was merely the one of not being able to work at it at all.  Even the housemaid who “did” his study noticed that day after day she was confronted by Chapter XXIV., in spite of her employer’s staying in, as usual, every morning.

The change in his manner and face, which had grown strained and harassed, had been noticed by Bianca, though she would have died sooner than admit she had noticed anything about him.  It was one of those periods in the lives of households like an hour of a late summer’s day—­brooding, electric, as yet quiescent, but charged with the currents of coming storms.

Twice only in those weeks while Hughs was in prison did Hilary see the girl.  Once he met her when he was driving home; she blushed crimson and her eyes lighted up.  And one morning, too, he passed her on the bench where they had sat together.  She was staring straight before her, the corners of her mouth drooping discontentedly.  She did not see him.