Of May he somehow did not wish to think.
When Dudley communicated with Julia over the telephone her manner was strained and resentful, and when he wrote her notes she replied to him with a reserve that showed her antagonism. His curiosity concerning her and Laurence was becoming painful. He guessed that she was in spiritual turmoil and he could not bear to be excluded from the consequences of a situation which he himself had brought about. If he could imagine himself dictating the course of her life, and of her husband's, it would not be so hard to forego that physical pleasure in her which had made him resentful of her, as of all other women. At the same time he fought off relinquishing any of himself to her necessities. She needed to grow. She did not belong in her bourgeois environment but she must escape it alone. He told himself that later she would thank him that he had been strong for both of them.
Dudley was utterly miserable in his exclusion. He needed to appear noble in his own eyes, and to assert his superiority with all those with whom he came in contact. And this in a world which he knew had become too sophisticated to believe any longer in the sincerity of the noble gesture. In a letter to Julia he said, "Spiritually, I too am not well. My life is not yet right. I can no longer avoid the conviction that I should live alone. I am meant to have friends, but not to live with any of them. And against this hold the numberless ways in which my life is linked with the lives of others. I am in conflict and here goes much of the energy which should pour into my projected and incompleted works.
"I find that in several countries of Europe there are conscious groups of men who feel that I am doing an important work, and that there is significance in my life and thought. Is that not strange? Is it so, or is it a freak of the pathos of distance?
"If I could only resolve this endless conflict within myself! This rending and spilling of myself in the battle of my wills to be alone and to live as others do: to be out of the world, and to be normally in it! It is a classic conflict, but no less mortal for that."
After he had sent the letter he was uncomfortable because he had written only of himself, but he dared not consider Julia's attitude. She must accept his own definition of himself and his acts.
Dudley was ashamed of the strength of his interest in the Farleys. When he was most in love with Julia he did not admit to his friends that she had any part in his life. Now he was determined to initiate her and Laurence into his environment. As a protest against their misunderstanding, he must force them to live through his experiences. Dudley even decided that when Julia became a part of his world it would do no harm if it became known that she had been his mistress. Before he let her go he wished the world to see her with some ineradicable mark of himself upon her. She must accept his permanent significance in her life without wanting to be paid for it by some symbol of sexual possession. He insisted on a meeting with her. They saw each other again in the park.
The park on this damp day looked vast and abandoned. The tall buildings, visible beyond the trees, were far off, strange with mist, as if in another world. A few drops of rain fell occasionally on the heavy surface of the lake and the water flickered like gray light. The grass and the bushes around were vividly still.