A sense of new-found power welled up in him. He had regained control of himself.
“Good! I will no longer be a moping love-sick fool. I am a man. To will is to live, to cease to will is to die. I have regained my will,—I live!”
He walked rapidly back to town with vigourous step. His mind was clear.
“I will never write her another line until she writes to me. I will not be a dog and whine at any rich man’s door or any woman’s feet. The world is large, and I am large. I will be sought as well as seek. Besides, my country needs me. If I am to give myself it will be for larger ends than for the smiles of one woman!”
And then for two weeks he entered deliberately on a series of dissipations. He left Hambright and sought convivial friends on the sea coast. He amazed them by asking to be taught cards.
He swept the gamut of all the senses without reserve, day after day, and night after night.
At the end of two weeks he found himself haunting the post-office oftener, with a vague sense of impending calamity.
“The thing’s all over I tell you!” he said to himself again and again. And then he would hurry to the next mail as eagerly as ever. As the excitement began to tire him, the sense of longing for her face, and voice, and the touch of her hand became intolerable.
“My God, I’d give all the world holds of sin to see her and hear one word from her lips!” he exclaimed as he locked himself in his room one night.
“Why didn’t she answer my last letter?” he continued. “Ah, that was the best letter I ever wrote her. I put my soul in every word. I didn’t believe the woman lived who could read such confessions and such worship without reply; Surely she has a heart!”