I trained myself like an athlete to defeat the despair which such thoughts occasioned. I tried to banish her from my mind. In my conscious moments I succeeded by keeping myself occupied. But in sleep she came to me in all manner of intimate and forbidden ways.
I crowded my hours with work that I might keep true to my purpose. And yet this method of fighting, when analyzed, consisted chiefly in running away. I took up tutorial duties at my college. I commenced to make studies for a biography of that typical genius of the Renaissance, half libertine, half mystic, Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini, known to history in his old age as Pope Pius II. I tried to fill up my leisure with new friendships. In none of these things could I become truly interested. My thoughts were crossing the ocean. When I was deepest in study I would start, hearing her voice, sharp and poignant.
One afternoon I was sitting with my chair drawn up to the hearth, my feet on the fender, a board across my knees, trying to write. A tap fell on the door. Lord Halloway entered.
He took a seat on the other side of the fireplace. “I’ve been wanting to speak to you for some time,” he said, “wanting to explain.”
“Wanting to explain what?”
“Myself in general. You don’t like me; I think you’re mistaken. I’m not the man I was.”
“But why should you explain to me?”
“Because I like you.”
“Don’t see why you should. Woadley’s probably coming to me—which you once thought was to be yours.”
“That doesn’t worry me. I’ll have the Lovegrove estates when my father dies. But I don’t like to feel that any man despises me—it hampers a chap in trying to do right. You pass me in the quads with a nod, and hurry as you go by so that I shan’t stop you. Why?”