What you want, after all, is society. Much better let me
arrange that little dinner for tonight!"
Wingrave shook his head.
"Later on, perhaps," he answered. "Good morning!"
A STUDENT OF CHARACTER
Left alone, Wingrave walked for several minutes up and down the room,
his hands behind him, his head bent. He walked, not restlessly, but
with measured footsteps. His mind was fixed steadfastly upon the one
immediate problem of his own future. His interview with Rocke had
unsettled--to a certain extent unnerved--him. Was this freedom for
which he had longed so passionately, this return into civilized life,
to mean simply the exchange of an iron-barred cell for a palace whose
outer gates were as hopelessly locked, even though the key was of
gold! Freedom! Was it after all an illusion? Was his to be the hog's
paradise of empty delights; were the other worlds indeed forbidden? He
moved abruptly to the window and threw it open. Below was Piccadilly,
brilliant with May sunshine, surging with life. Motors and carriages,
omnibuses and hansoms, were all jostled together in a block; the
pavements were thronged with a motley and ever-hurrying crowd. It
seemed to him, accustomed to the callous and hopeless appearance of a
less happy tribe, that the faces of these people were all aflame with
the joy of the springtime. The perfume from the great clusters of
yellow daffodils and violets floated up from the flower sellers'
baskets below; the fresh, warm air seemed to bring him poignant
memories of crocus-starred lawns, of trim beds of hyacinths, of the
song of birds, of the perfume of drooping lilac.
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