It is a long walk from the Strand to St. John’s Wood, and it was considerably after seven when he slipped his latchkey into the door and went into the dark studio, turning up the light as he entered. Still the sense of loneliness held him; the room, despite all its luxuriousness, appeared comfortless.
He sat down and stirred the fire into a flame; sat there, smoking and thinking.
Strength had gone out of him. During the last few days his work had failed to satisfy him: it had been labored and dull. He had never before suffered in this way. Painting had hitherto been the supreme thing in his life, but now a woman’s face was always flitting between him and the canvas. If she were with him, would it still be so? Or would she strengthen and inspire him? It was the uncertainty that disturbed him; to have and to hold her, then to find that she injured and did not aid him—that would hurt, but the wound would quickly heal, he felt sure. It would be wiser, then, to act promptly, to put an end to this state of doubt.
Supposing she rejected him? Probably she had not come to him because she did not care whether she met him again or did not. Or—it might be—she wished so dearly to see him that she could not bring herself to come to him.
As he strode up the crunching gravel path he saw that the parlor was in darkness, or else the curtains were very closely drawn.
If her husband were with her his visit would be in vain, save that it would show her that he was anxious to see her. His hand trembled as he knocked, and he waited anxiously for the maid’s approach.
“No, sir. She’s just gone away, sir, in a keb, with her boxes. She was a-goin’ on a wisit, she said.”
He hurried away, shocked, angry. What silly trick was fate playing on him? He must write, cautiously, perhaps to find that she was gone out of his reach.
What an unutterably dreary part of the town was this in which he found himself pursuing the more or less romantic! Dingy vice and dreary respectability inextricably mingled, punctuated by blazing public houses. He hurried through the continuous stream of wayfarers, wondering if any of them knew the meaning of love. It startled him to find how intense had grown his longing for Marian, whom he thought at first he held in his hand, but who now eluded him so persistently.