Later, in his bedroom, shut in, and safe and independent, with the new
blind drawn, and the gas fizzing in its opaline globe, he tried to read
"Don Juan." He could not. He was incapable of fixity of mind. He
could not follow the sense of a single stanza. Images of his father and
of Hilda Lessways mingled with reveries of the insult he had received
and the triumph he had won, and all the confused wonder of the day and
evening engaged his thoughts. He dwelt lovingly on the supreme
disappointment of his career. He fancied what he would have been doing,
and where he would have been then, if his appalling father had not made
it impossible for him to be an architect. He pitied himself. But he
saw the material of happiness ahead, in the faithful execution of his
resolves for self-perfecting. And Hilda had flattered him. Hilda had
given him a new conception of himself... A tiny idea arose in his brain
that there was perhaps some slight excuse for his father's suspicion of
him. After all, he had been secretive. He trampled on that idea, and
it arose again.
He slept very heavily, and woke with a headache. A week elapsed before
his agitation entirely disappeared, and hence before he could realise
how extreme that agitation had been. He was ashamed of having so madly
and wildly abandoned himself to passion.