every lover. He ought to do it; the fitness of things demanded it. To be constant under all circumstances was the role of his position. Romance ruled him as powerfully as ever, although his illusions had ceased. Each week his one call became more and more a labour; each week he resolved more firmly to fulfil the original understanding to the letter.

XIII

About three months after this explanation and the repudiation of the engagement, it happened one day that Martial was following the harriers on the hills, when, to his surprise, he observed a lady running on foot with such speed that she kept pace with the horsemen. He could not help noticing her grace, and admiring the swiftness with which she ran. He saw her quite close several times during the day.

As he rode homewards, he stopped to speak with a friend, who asked him to take some refreshment (a collation had been on the table all day for passing sportsmen), and it so happened that a lady whom Felise had met in the field had brought her there for the same purpose. By accident Martial sat opposite Felise, and her face from that hour was painted irremovably in the chamber of his mind.

He did not see her again in the field, for Felise fancied that she had attracted undue attention. Bold as she was in her own love’s cause, she was sensitive to observation at other times, and she did not run again after the harriers.

But in the winter it happened that a little matter of business arose between Barnard and Mr. Goring about a watercourse in which both were interested, and in order to settle it amicably a personal interview was desirable. Barnard rode over, and for the second time met Felise. On this occasion the interview was even shorter and more formal, but it was long enough to confirm Martial’s first impression.

Week after week, as he sat by Rosa, he saw the face of Felise. He did not feel the least emotion of love for Felise, but he saw her face before him. Day by day his weariness increased, till his position towards Rosa became intolerable. He could not endure her; it was a misery to him to spend even the short time now permitted in her presence. It was not hatred, it was worse⁠—it was utter ennui and dislike. The more this grew upon him, so much the more, according to his code, he was bound to conscientiously attend her.

No fresh-sprung passion for Felise mingled with this revulsion. All his ideas of Felise were simply admiration, the admiration given to a picture. The singular loveliness of her features and the grace of her form took a deep hold of his artistic nature, but his heart did not throb. Her influence was negative. She had not inspired him with passion, but she had thrown up the object of his previous admiration into unpleasant relief.

He now saw only too plainly that Rosa was only pretty; pretty, because she was young. He did not like a low forehead overhung by a quantity of dark hair. Her figure was not full; her shape looked flat to him now; her walk was clumsy; and he observed that she brought down the toe of her boot after the heel, making a second stump distinctly. These two clumping noises irritated him. Somehow her dresses never suited her, though they were expensive; her conversation was insufferably insipid. In fact, he was forever unconsciously comparing her with Felise, and continually finding out additional defects.

All he wanted was to be free; he did not want Felise, but he wished to be free of Rosa.

He looked back upon his extravagances with such disgust as to feel ready to kill himself for having committed them. The quotations, for instance, from his favourite poems, which he had applied to Rosa⁠—he put the very books away out of sight, that they might not remind him. Unless it was necessary, he carefully avoided entering the town, simply because she lived there; yet he called every week, and paid her the same attentions.

The disgust with which he looked back upon his own former sentiments was much stronger than the dislike he felt towards Rosa herself. Though he now saw her defects so distinctly, he could not help owning that she had committed no fault. His anger was with himself.

Despite his efforts to forget, and despite the putting away of his books, every now and then he caught himself applying the old quotations to Felise, to whom they fitted exactly.

This rendered him still more irritable; nothing on earth should ever induce him to commit such fooleries again. He did not love Felise, and he did not want to love her. Had he not read about love he should never have loved at all, nor understood what it meant. Such reading ought to be destroyed, placing, as it did, stilted and unreal ideas into young people’s heads.

A man did not need anything of the kind; a man ought to be quite independent of such fancies; a man should be quite free and independent, and walk about, and whistle, and think of nothing. Fellows who were always paying court to women became effeminate and contemptible. A woman’s servitor, such as he had been⁠—and still was⁠—was despicable. He despised himself thoroughly. He easily found examples in history to support his new views, such as that of Alexander the Great, who conquered the world, and was reported indifferent to women. But Mark Antony quitted the stage at the end of a petticoat. Ignominious!

At the same time, he was always thinking about the beautiful face of the woman he had seen but twice. Several times he rode towards Mr. Goring’s house, thinking that he might see her in the garden as he passed, but on approaching turned back, accusing himself of disloyalty to Rosa. After these rides he had fits of contempt, despising himself for even thinking of a woman.

Still, he reasoned that

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