"This," he said to himself, "is rot for me! It isn't a good poem,—and if it were a good poem (it has some good qualities) it's idiotic for me to read poetry. What is the matter with me?" He put down all the books, and went and looked at himself in the mirror. He saw a face rather paler, more worn than some weeks ago.
For the last few nights Woodville had suffered from insomnia—a trouble at which he used to scoff and smile, firmly believing, until it had been his own experience, that it was affectation. The second day that he had gone to look out of the window at about five o'clock in the morning, feeling that curious lucid clearness of brain, almost a kind of second-sight, sometimes produced by unwonted sleeplessness, he still thought that people made much too much fuss about a restless night or two.
"Suppose a fellow couldn't sleep for a time! Well, he can read, or work. It was nothing." But, about eleven in the morning the exaltation of the wakefulness had gone off, and he felt stupid and depressed. He suddenly began to feel anxious about himself. Of course, it was all Sylvia! This life, seeing her more or less all day, under the same roof, pretending to be only friends, without any sort of vent, any expression, verbal or otherwise, for his sentiment, was impossible! It was unbearable! He ought to have gone to Athens.... Suddenly Sylvia came into the room. She looked the picture of freshness and happiness. She had come to fetch a book, she said. But she lingered a moment, to ask Woodville if he liked her new dress. It was a Paris marvel of simplicity in pale grey, and neither disguised nor over-emphasised the lines of her exquisite figure.
"Yes, I think it's all right," said Woodville.
"All right!" she exclaimed indignantly. "Don't you see how it fits? Why, it's simply wonderful! How heartless you are!" There was just a tinge of coquetry in her manner, which was rather unwonted. "You're not looking very well to-day," she said, looking sympathetically at him.
"I'm very well. I'm always all right."
"Are you angry with me, Frank? What's the matter? What's that you're reading?" She snatched the book of poems away from him, read the poem and blushed with pleasure.
"Yes! You see that's what I'm reduced to!" he said.
"Frank, I don't think you go out enough. Look, what a lovely day it is!"
"Where do you propose I should go? To the theatre to-night? I hate theatres." He spoke irritably.