And something beat within him in these days that with each throb fretted
at the thinning shell. His sagacity knew this, but it knew too that he
could not stop that beating, nor would if he could. And yet, if you had
told him he was living on his capital, he would have stared you
down. No, no; a man did not live on his capital; it was not done! The
shibboleths of the past are ever more real than the actualities of
the present. And he, to whom living on one's capital had always been
anathema, could not have borne to have applied so gross a phrase to his
own case. Pleasure is healthful; beauty good to see; to live again in
the youth of the young--and what else on earth was he doing!
Methodically, as had been the way of his whole life, he now arranged his
time. On Tuesdays he journeyed up to town by train; Irene came and dined
with him. And they went to the opera. On Thursdays he drove to town,
and, putting that fat chap and his horses up, met her in Kensington
Gardens, picking up the carriage after he had left her, and driving home
again in time for dinner. He threw out the casual formula that he had
business in London on those two days. On Wednesdays and Saturdays she
came down to give Holly music lessons.
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