What was to be done?
If only he were able to cut this ugly sore in his soul out with a knife
and have done with it forever! But that was impossible. It stared him in
the face, a haunting reality. In his distress he asked himself whether
he would not go to Mr. Glynn and make a clean breast of it; but his
practical instincts answered him that he would none the less have made a
beast of himself. He held his head between his hands, and stared
dejectedly at his desk. Some relief came to him at last only from the
reflection that it was a single fault, and that it need never--it should
never be repeated. Selma need not know, and he would henceforth avoid
all such temptations. Terrible as it was, it was a slip, not a
deliberate fault, and his love for his wife was not in question.
Thus reasoning, he managed by the third day after his return to reach a
less despondent frame of mind. While busy writing in his office a lady
was announced, and looking up he encountered the meretricious smile of
the courtesan with whom he had forgotten himself. She had taken a fancy
to her victim, and having learned that he was well to do, she had come
in order to establish, if possible, on a more permanent basis, her
relations with him.
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