He was immersed in a wave of sentimentality. He wanted her
by his side, free from any restraint. He wanted the joy of her
presence, more of those soft, almost reluctant kisses, the mute
obedience of her nature to the sweet and natural impulse of her love.
Of the inevitable end of these things he never thought. He was like a
schoolboy in love for the first time. His desires led him no further
than the mystic joy of her presence, the sweet, passionless content of
propinquity. For the time the rest lay somewhere in a world of golden
promise. The sole right that he burned to claim was the right to have
her continually by his side in the moments when he was freed from his
work, and even with the prospect of the following night before him, he
chafed a little as he reflected that until then he must stand aside and
let others claim her. In a fit of restlessness he abandoned his usual
table in the House of Commons grillroom, and dined instead at the
Sheridan Club, where he drank a great deal of champagne and absorbed
with ready appreciation and amusement the philosophy of the man of
pleasure.
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