of this impression upon her hearer.  Waymark had often busied himself with inventing all manner of excuses for her, had exerted his imagination to the utmost to hit upon some most irresistible climax of dolorous circumstances to account for her downfall.  He had yet to realise that circumstances are as relative in their importance as everything else in this world, and that ofttimes the greatest tragedies revolve on apparently the most insignificant outward events—­personality being all.

He spent the hours of her absence in moving from place to place, fretting in mind.  At one moment, he half determined to bring things to some issue, by disregarding all considerations and urging his love upon her.  Yet this he felt he could not do.  Surely—­he asked himself angrily he was not still so much in the thraldom of conventionality as to be affected by his fresh reminder of her position and antecedents?  Perhaps not quite so much prejudice as experience which disturbed him.  He was well acquainted with the characteristics of girls of this class; he knew how all but impossible it is for them to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  And there was one thing particularly in Ida’s story that he found hard to credit; was it indeed likely that she had not felt more than she would confess for this man whose mistress she became so easily?  If she had not, if what she said were true, was not this something like a proof of her lack of that refined sentiment which is, the capacity for love, in its real sense?  Torturing doubts and reasonings of this kind once set going in a brain already confused with passion, there is no limit to the range of speculation opened; Waymark found himself—­in spite of everything—­entertaining all his old scepticism.  In any case, had he the slightest ground for the hope that she might ever feel to him as warmly as he did to her?  He could not recall one instance of Ida’s having betrayed a trace of fondness in her intercourse with him.  The mere fact of their intercourse he altogether lost sight of.  Whereas an outsider would, under the circumstances, have been justified in laying the utmost stress on this, Waymark had grown to accept it as a matter of course, and only occupied himself with Ida’s absolute self-control, her perfect calmness in all situations, the ease with which she met his glance, the looseness of her hand in his, the indifference with which she heard him when he had spoken of his loneliness and frequent misery.  Where was the key of her character?  She did not care for admiration; it was quite certain that she was not leading him about just to gratify her own vanity.  Was it not purely an intellectual matter?  She was a girl of superior intellect, and, having found in him some one with whom she could satisfy her desire for rational converse, did she not on this account keep up their relations?  For the rest—­well, she liked ease and luxury; above all, ease.  Of that she would certainly make no sacrifice.  How well he could imagine the half-annoyed, half-contemptuous smile which would rise to her beautiful face, if he were so foolish as to become sentimental with her!  That, he felt, would be a look not easy to bear.  Humiliation he dreaded.