He turned into the long dining-room to his right. There was here a dim light burning, the windows were wide open, the place cool and still.
He shut the door behind him and began pacing quickly up and down. It was necessary in some way to collect his mind before meeting his mother.
He shut his fists hard against his chest and breathed hard as he walked. By his breathing he judged he must have run part of the way from Curzon Street.
The perspiration was trickling down his forehead. He held his head up high; he felt as though there was a tight hand round his throat. He thrust his fingers inside his collar and tried to ease his neck.
"This is absurd," he said aloud at last. But what it was that he felt to be absurd he did not know.
"The heat is suffocating one!" he said in a short time, and tore again at his shirt, loosing his necktie and rumpling his collar.
"I am choking for air!" he cried, and tried to fling the windows higher up, but they were both as high as they could go.
"My throat is cracking!" he cried huskily, and looking round with blazing eyes through the dim room saw a caraffa on the side-board. He poured out a glass of water and swallowed the water at a draught. "Oh, that is much better," he said with a smile, and resumed his walk up and down the long room at a lessened rate. "Let me think," he said; "let me think if I can."
He clasped his hands behind his back and leaned his head on one side, his attitude when designing the plan of a speech or musing upon the parts of it.
The water he had swallowed and the slackened pace and the posture of reflection, tended to cool him and bring his mind into condition for harmonious working.