"Rennes," said one of his friends, "can work for sixteen hours a day. It is all taken from without. He gives nothing except his undivided attention." The saying was not true; he gave himself absolutely--soul, brain, and heart--to his task, but the gift was too premeditated, too accurately weighed. There was no self-abandonment, nor self-forgetfulness. His admiration for Miss Carillon had been of this kind. Having added up her attractions, her figure, her face, her youth, her intelligence, her grace, he decided that she was exceptional in many ways. He found real happiness in her society--she was so sane, so clear, so unaffected. His attitude toward her had remained for some time one of fraternal affection, partly by force of will, chiefly because his relations with other women were not so restrained. But the position was changing. Certain forces in life were assuming for him a complicated and threatening aspect. What if, after all, there was an incalculable element in man?
"Now to be practical," he said to himself. He had not seen his mother for a fortnight. She lived in Kensington Square. "I must really go and see my mother!" The cab drove quickly; the little grey house was soon reached. David opened the door with his latch-key and rushed upstairs into the small drawing-room, furnished in white and green, with fresh flowers on the mantelpiece, and many shelves of vellum-bound books. A bronze lamp hung from the ceiling, and its globe, covered in violet silk, cast a light like that of the early dawn in hilly regions. A faint odour of lavender filled the air. In one corner of the room there was a chess-table with its chessmen showing an interrupted game. A velvet footstool, much indented by the pressure of a firm foot, stood in front of the carved armchair in which Mrs. Rennes usually sat. Her work-basket, lined with blue satin and shining with steel fittings, stood in its customary place on a gipsy stool near the fireplace. A few old English prints hung on the walls, and between the windows there was a Chippendale cabinet filled with Worcester and Crown Derby china. The aspect of all things was restful, emotionless, and some of its calm seemed to overtake and soothe David's agitated spirit. He sat down at the piano and played, with much passion, bits from Wagner's "_Tristan_," the first performance of which he had seen at Munich. "Good Heavens!" he thought. "What a genius! What a soul! What a phrase!" Suddenly the door opened and Agnes Carillon was ushered in. She hesitated a second, and then recognised Rennes, who had his back to the light. Her first instinct was to retreat; her first feeling was a strange sensation of pleasure and fear. His usually cold and wearied face took an expression of controlled but unmistakable delight. She blushed, though not with resentment, yet she avoided, by appearing to have some difficulty with her muff, his outstretched hand.