a while staring up into the verdurous dusk overhead
and trying mentally to see his friend at Saint-Germain
hurry toward some quiet stream-side where he
waited, as he had seen that trusting creature hurry
an hour before. It would be hard to say how well
he succeeded; but the effort soothed rather than excited
him, and as he had had a good deal both of moral and
physical fatigue he sank at last into a quiet sleep.
While he slept moreover he had a strange and vivid
dream. He seemed to be in a wood, very much like
the one on which his eyes had lately closed; but the
wood was divided by the murmuring stream he had left
an hour before. He was walking up and down, he
thought, restlessly and in intense expectation of
some momentous event. Suddenly, at a distance,
through the trees, he saw a gleam of a woman’s
dress, on which he hastened to meet her. As he
advanced he recognised her, but he saw at the same
time that she was on the other bank of the river.
She seemed at first not to notice him, but when they
had come to opposite places she stopped and looked
at him very gravely and pityingly. She made him
no sign that he must cross the stream, but he wished
unutterably to stand by her side. He knew the
water was deep, and it seemed to him he knew how he
should have to breast it and how he feared that when
he rose to the surface she would have disappeared.
Nevertheless he was going to plunge when a boat turned
into the current from above and came swiftly toward
them, guided by an oarsman who was sitting so that
they couldn’t see his face. He brought
the boat to the bank where Longmore stood; the latter
stepped in, and with a few strokes they touched the
opposite shore. Longmore got out and, though
he was sure he had crossed the stream, Madame de Mauves
was not there. He turned with a kind of agony
and saw that now she was on the other bank—the
one he had left. She gave him a grave silent
glance and walked away up the stream. The boat
and the boatman resumed their course, but after going
a short distance they stopped and the boatman turned
back and looked at the still divided couple.
Then Longmore recognised him—just as he
had recognised him a few days before at the restaurant
in the Bois de Boulogne.
He must have slept some time after he ceased dreaming
for he had no immediate memory of this vision.
It came back to him later, after he had roused himself
and had walked nearly home. No great arrangement
was needed to make it seem a striking allegory, and
it haunted and oppressed him for the rest of the day.
He took refuge, however, in his quickened conviction
that the only sound policy in life is to grasp unsparingly
at happiness; and it seemed no more than one of the
vigorous measures dictated by such a policy to return
that evening to Madame de Mauves. And yet when
he had decided to do so and had carefully dressed himself
he felt an irresistible nervous tremor which made it
