And under what circumstances was I to take Nous? Apparently if I could not do so.
I was not sneering at the little note, and it went into my breast pocket, but it amused me.
"That is the way I ought to write for the British, I suppose?" I muttered, with a yawn. "Muddle all one's language up until nobody has the faintest idea of what the author's sentiments are, and then they don't know whether he means anything heterodox or not."
I got up. I might as well obey the orders I had just received.
There was a tired confusion of thought in my brain—a floating mass of half-formed embryonic ideas, wishes, plans and suggestions filled it that were quite useless for prompting or guiding any definite resolution as to what I should do in the immediate future.
Everything seemed to depend on something else, and it was impossible to find any positive basis upon which I could found a resolve.
If I could succeed as an author, my way was clear, but if I could not, and if ... and if... And so on through a wearying, perplexing series of conditions.
Just then I felt unequal to regulating and giving order to this inward chaos, and I abandoned the attempt.
Meanwhile I would go over to the house in South Kensington, whence the letter had come.
It was about eleven when I arrived there, and I was told Miss Grant was "upstairs, as usual."