And all
the time there seemed to be within him two men at mortal grips with one
another; the man of faith in divine sanction and authority, on which
all his beliefs had hitherto hinged, and a desperate warm-blooded hungry
creature. He was very miserable, craving strangely for the society of
someone who could understand what he was feeling, and, from long habit
of making no confidants, not knowing how to satisfy that craving.
It was dawn when he reached his rooms; and, sure that he would not
sleep, he did not even go to bed, but changed his clothes, made himself
some coffee, and sat down at the window which overlooked the flowered
courtyard.
In Middle Temple Hall a Ball was still in progress, though the glamour
from its Chinese lanterns was already darkened and gone. Miltoun saw
a man and a girl, sheltered by an old fountain, sitting out their last
dance. Her head had sunk on her partner's shoulder; their lips were
joined. And there floated up to the window the scent of heliotrope,
with the tune of the waltz that those two should have been dancing. This
couple so stealthily enlaced, the gleam of their furtively turned eyes,
the whispering of their lips, that stony niche below the twittering
sparrows, so cunningly sought out--it was the world he had abjured! When
he looked again, they--like a vision seen--had stolen away and gone;
the music too had ceased, there was no scent of heliotrope.
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