that politics were not unlikely to demand more of his attention some day.  But he was glad when he could get away to the drawing-room, to await Mrs. Baxendale’s coming.  He tried to read in a volume of Boswell which lay out; at other times the book was his delight, now it had the succulence of a piece of straw.  He was in that state of mind when five minutes of waiting is intolerable.  He had to wait some twenty before Mrs. Baxendale appeared.  Only a clinging remnant of common-sense kept him from addressing her sourly.  Wilfrid was not eminently patient.

‘Well, what counsel has sleep brought?’ she asked, speaking as if she had some other matter on her mind—­as indeed she had—­a slight difficulty which had just arisen with the cook.

‘I should not be much advanced if I had depended upon sleep,’ Wilfrid replied cheerlessly.  Always sensitive, he was especially so at this moment, and the lady seemed to him unsympathetic.  He should have allowed for the hour; matters involving sentiment should never be touched till the day has grown to ripeness.  The first thing in the morning a poet is capable of mathematics.

‘I fear you are not the only one who has not slept,’ said Mrs. Baxendale.

Wilfrid, after waiting in vain, went on in a tone very strange to him: 

’I don’t know what to do; I am incapable of thought.  Another night like the last will drive me mad.  You tell me I must merely wait; but I cannot be passive.  What help is there?  How can I kill the time?’

Mrs. Baxendale was visibly harder than on the previous evening.  A half-smile caused her to draw in her lips; she played with the watch-chain at her girdle.

‘I fear,’ she said, ’we have done all that can be done.  Naturally you would find it intolerable to linger here.’

‘I must return to London?’

’Under any other circumstances I should be the last to wish it, but I suppose it is better that you should.’

He was prepared for the advice, but unreason strove in him desperately against the facts of the situation.  It was this impotent quarrel with necessity which robbed him of his natural initiative and made Mrs. Baxendale wonder at his unexpected feebleness.  To him it seemed something to stand his ground even for a few minutes.  He could have eased himself with angry speech.  Remember that he had not slept, and that his mind was sore with the adversary’s blows.

‘I understand your reluctance,’ Mrs. Baxendale pursued.  ’It’s like a surrendering of hope.  But you know what I said last night; I could only repeat the same things now.  Don’t be afraid; I will not.’

‘Yes,’ he murmured, ‘I must go to London.’

’It would be far worse if you had no friend here.  You shall hear from me constantly.  You have an assurance that the poor thing can’t run away.’

In the expressive vulgar phrase, Wilfrid ‘shook himself together.’  He began to perceive that his attitude lacked dignity; even in our misery we cannot bear to appear ignoble.