He must renounce the best of himself, step consciously to a lower level.  Only let it not prove sheer degradation.

In all his struggling against the misery of loss, one thought never tempted him.  Never for a fleeting instant did he doubt that his highest love was at the same time highest reason.  Men woefully deceive themselves, yearning for women whose image in their minds is a mere illusion, women who scarce for a day could bring them happiness, and whose companionship through life would become a curse.  Be it so; Piers knew it, dwelt upon it as a perilous fact; it had no application to his love for Irene Derwent.  Indeed, Piers was rich in that least common form of intelligence—­the intelligence of the heart.  Emotional perspicacity, the power of recognising through all forms of desire one’s true affinity in the other sex, is bestowed upon one mortal in a vast multitude.  Not lack of opportunity alone accounts for the failure of men and women to mate becomingly; only the elect have eyes to see, even where the field of choice is freely opened to them.  But Piers Otway saw and knew, once and for ever.  He had the genius of love:  where he could not observe, divination came to his help.  His knowledge of Irene Derwent surpassed that of the persons most intimate with her, and he could as soon have doubted his own existence as the certainty that Irene was what he thought her, neither more nor less.  But he had erred in dreaming it possible that he might win her love.  That he was not all unworthy of it, his pride continued to assure him; what he had failed to perceive was the impossibility, circumstances being as they were, of urging a direct suit, of making himself known to Irene.  His birth, his position, the accidents of his career—­all forbade it.  This had been forced upon his consciousness from the very first, in hours of despondency or of torment; but he was too young and too ardent for the fact to have its full weight with him.  Hope resisted; passion refused acquiescence.  Nothing short of what had happened could reveal to him the vanity of his imaginings.  He looked back on the years of patient confidence with wonder and compassion.  Had he really hoped?  Yes, for he had lived so long alone.

Paragraphs, morning, evening, and weekly, had long since published Miss Derwent’s engagement.  Those making simple announcement of the fact were trial enough to him when his eye fell upon them; intolerable were those which commented, as in the case of a society journal which he had idly glanced over at his club.  This taught him that Irene had more social importance than he guessed; her marriage would be something of an event.  Heaven grant that he might read no journalistic description of the ceremony!  Few things more disgusted him than the thought of a fashionable wedding; he could see nothing in it but profanation and indecency.  That mattered little, to be sure, in the case of ordinary people, who were born, and lived, and died, in fashionable routine, anxious only to exhibit themselves at any given moment in the way held to be good form; but it was hard to think that custom’s tyranny should lay its foul hand on Irene Derwent.  Perhaps her future husband meant no such thing, and would arrange it all with quiet becomingness.  Certainly her father would not favour the tawdry and the vulgar.