His determination, arrived at again and again, was to flee at once from the horrible passion which was sapping the life out of him—his insane love for a woman who evidently despised him, and whose face he had never seen.
He argued that, by going right away to Rome, Florence, or even merely to Paris, he would avoid Lady Dellatoria, who would soon forget him as he would forget this Italian woman, who—he could not explain to himself why—had, as it were, woven some spell round him and made him half mad.
He reasoned with himself, called upon the teaching of his early life, mocked at his folly, and told himself that he had got the better of the insane passion—that he had disgusted this woman by his insults, and that he was free, for she would come no more. But in another hour he was watching for her coming, and trying to contrive some means of tracing her, and begging her to come again.
Why?—that he might stand spell-bound again before that masked face, tortured, enslaved, and in greater despair than ever?
“It is of no use!” he muttered passionately. “I have not the mental strength of a child. I must go right away from the horrible temptation—and at once.”
He made a step or two toward his room. He had money enough; a few things could be packed, and in an hour he might be on his way to Dover. After that the world was before him, so that he could seek for peace.
No. Michael Thorpe and his sister were in London. It would be the act of a coward to flee now, and be dragging himself down lower still in their eyes. He could not go: Michael Thorpe would be sure to come before long, he felt, and he wished he would. It would be a relief to have some savage quarrel. Hah! there was an opportunity: Pacey, who had betrayed him and brought Cornel over for that shameful scene, after which he had felt that his life had better end.
“No,” he said half aloud, “I can’t quarrel with poor old Joe. He meant well, and he was right. But I cannot leave London now.”
He burst into a mocking laugh the next minute, for he would not indulge in self-deceit. He knew that it was not merely the dread of being thought cowardly which kept him there, but his mad passion for this woman, who treated him as if he were a dog.
Then he grew calmer, and tried to reason with himself. She had not treated him as a dog. Her conduct had been irreproachable. No lady could have been more modest or refined in her conduct throughout. She had come there merely as a model, and he had conceived this strange passion for her in spite of distant coldness, and complete disdain. He remembered in a score of things how she had borne herself as if conferring a favour by coming and taking his money; and he knew, too, how it was forced upon her by her filial affection.