For a moment his passion blazed up within him, and he felt himself barbarian and primitive man without code of morals, without regard for honour and environment. He who spent his innocuous days in an office making money, wearing a black coat, living the dull, respectable, stereotyped life, who spent his leisure in reading papers about affairs that he cared not one drop of heart's blood about, in tapping foolish croquet balls through iron hoops, in playing the piano at Heathmoor dinner-parties, in enveloping himself and his soul in the muffled cotton-wool of comfort and material ease, knew that within this swathed cocoon of himself, that lay in a decorous row of hundreds of other similar cocoons, there lurked, in spite of all contrary appearance, an individual life. He found himself capable of love and utterly indifferent to honour or obligations, regarding them only as arbitrary rules laid down for the pursuance of the foolish game of civilized existence. In essentials he believed himself without morals, without religion, without any of the bonds that have built up corporate man and differentiate life from dreams. And this flashed discovery did not disconcert him; he felt as if he had found a jewel in the muddy flats of existence.
Then, in another flash, he was back in his cocoon again, prisoner in this decorous roomful of things which he did not want. There was a silver cigarette-box on a polished table; there was an ivory paper-knife stuck into the leaves of a book he was reading, a parquetted floor spread with Persian rugs, and all these things were symbols of slavery, chains that bound him, or, at the best, bright objects by which a baby is diverted from its crying for the moon. And the clock chiming its half-hour after seven told him he must conform to the prison rules and go to dress for dinner at Mrs. Hancock's.
He took out of his coat-pocket an envelope about which, up to this moment, he had completely forgotten. It contained the ticket for a box at the opera, which he had bought that day for a performance of "Siegfried" in a week's time. He hoped to persuade the ladies next door to be his guests, and since the pursuance of this formed part of the resumption of ordinary normal life he meant to propose his plans to them. But both when he bought the ticket and now, he saw that it might bear on the life that lay within the cocoon. More than all the material diversion or business of the world he wanted to go with Elizabeth to "Siegfried." And, with his hat, when he started to dinner, he took the book of the music with him.
He was a little late as judged by the iron punctuality of Arundel, and he found the ladies assembled. He had one moment of intense nervousness as he entered, but it was succeeded by an eagerness not less intense when he saw Elizabeth's cordial and welcoming smile. That set the note for him; he had already determined on the same key, and he knew himself in tune with it.
As he shook hands with the girl he laughed and turned to Mrs. Hancock, involuntarily detaining Elizabeth's hand one second, not more, than was quite usual.
"I was rather nervous," he said. "I intruded on Elizabeth's practice this afternoon. Perhaps she has told you. In fact, I meant to stay to wait for your return and Edith's, but I found it quite impossible."
"Dear!" said Mrs. Hancock. "Yes, Lind has told us dinner is ready. Did Elizabeth scold you?"
Elizabeth, equally relieved, laughed.
"You behaved very rudely, Edward," she said; "and, as a matter of fact, I didn't tell them. I wanted to screen you. But as you don't seem in the least ashamed of yourself I shall give you up."
"What revelations we are going to have!" said Mrs. Hancock. "Yes, your favourite soup, Edward. Mrs. Williams thought of it when she heard you were coming. She sent out for the cream. Now let us hear all about it. I thought there was some mystery."