He has talked himself into a condition of such exalted confidence before he reaches the end of this sentence that Jim is conscious of a certain brutality in applying to him the douche contained in his next words.
"I do not know why you should credit Mrs. Le Marchant with such colossal selfishness; she never used to be a selfish woman."
But Burgoyne's cold shower-bath does not appear even to damp the shoulders for which it is intended.
"'Since you left me, taking no farewell,'"
murmurs Byng, beginning again to tramp up and down the little room, with head thrown back and clasped hands high lifted; and in his rapt poet voice:
"'Since you left me, taking no farewell,'
I must follow you, sweet! Despite your prohibition, I must follow you.
"'We two that with so many thousand sighs,
Did buy each other.'"
Then, coming abruptly down to prose—"Though they left no address, it will of course be possible, easy, to trace them. I will go to the station and make inquiries. They will have been seen. It is out of the question that she can have passed unnoticed! No eye that has once been enriched by the sight of her can have forgotten that heavenly vision. I will telegraph to Bologna, to Milan, to Venice. Before night I shall have learnt her whereabouts. I shall be in the train, following her track. I shall be less than a day behind her. I shall fall at her feet, I shall——"
"You are talking nonsense," answers Burgoyne impatiently; and yet with a distinct shade of pity in his voice; "you cannot do anything of the kind. When the poor woman has given so very unequivocal a proof of her wish to avoid you, as is implied in leaving the place at a moment's notice, without giving herself even time to pack her clothes, it is impossible that you can force your company again upon her—it would be persecution."