He was experiencing
a sensation never felt before. Those travels with a lady of Spain,
charitably conceded him by old Heythorp, had so far satisfied the
emotional side of this young man; they had stopped short at Brighton
and Scarborough, and been preserved from even the slightest intrusion of
love. A calculated and hygienic career had caused no anxiety either
to himself or his father; and this sudden swoop of something more than
admiration gave him an uncomfortable choky feeling just above his high
round collar, and in the temples a sort of buzzing--those first symptoms
of chivalry. A man of the world does not, however, succumb without a
struggle; and if his hat had not been out of reach, who knows whether he
would not have left the house hurriedly, saying to himself: "No, no,
my boy; Millicent Villas is hardly your form, when your intentions are
honourable"? For somehow that round and laughing face, bob of glistening
hair, those wide-opened grey eyes refused to awaken the beginnings of
other intentions--such is the effect of youth and innocence on even the
steadiest young men. With a kind of moral stammer, he was thinking: 'Can
I--dare I offer to see them to their tram? Couldn't I even nip out
and get the car round and send them home in it? No, I might miss
them--better stick it out here! What a jolly laugh! What a tipping
face--strawberries and cream, hay, and all that! Millicent Villas!' And
he wrote it on his cuff.
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