He
atoned for his behaviour, the next time they met, by assuming his very
humblest air; once, too, he deliberately threw himself in her way, for
the mere pleasure of standing aside with the emphatic deference of a
slave. Throughout this period, and particularly after an occasion such
as the last, his self-consciousness was so peculiarly intensified that
his surroundings ceased to exist for him--they two were the gigantic
figures on a shadow background--and what he sometimes could not believe
was, that such feelings as these should be seething in him, and she
remain ignorant of them. He lost touch with reality, and dreamed
dreams of imperceptible threads, finer than any gossamer, which could
be spun from soul to soul, without the need of speech.
He heaped on her all the spiritual perfections that answered to her
appearance. And he did not, for a time, observe anything to make him
waver in his faith that she was whiter, stiller, and more
unapproachable--of a different clay, in short, from other women. Then,
however, this illusion was shattered. Late one afternoon, she came
down the stairs of the house she lived in, and, pausing at the door,
looked up and down the hot, empty street, shading her eyes with her
hand. No one was in sight, and she was about to turn away, when, from
where he was watching in a neighbouring doorway, Maurice saw the
red-haired violinist come swiftly round the corner.
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