At half-past two on the following afternoon he was waiting for the future in order to recommence living. During this period, to a greater extent even than the average individual in average circumstances, he was of living in the present. Continually he looked either forward or back. All that he had achieved, or that had been achieved for him—the new house with its brightness and its of luxury, his books, his learning, his friends, his experience: not long since regarded by him as the precious materials of happiness—all had become negligible trifles, nothings, of import. The sole condition to a tolerable existence was now to have sight and speech of Hilda Lessways. He was intensely unhappy in the long stretches of time which separated one contact with her from the next. And in the brief moments of their companionship he was far too distraught, too , too desirous, too puzzled, to be able to call himself happy. Seeing her did to the pain of his curiosity about her—not his curiosity concerning the details of her life and of her person, for these scarcely interested him, but his curiosity concerning the very essence of her being. At seven o’clock on the previous day, he had her visit as possessing a decisive importance which covered the whole field of his wishes. The visit had occurred, and he was not a advanced; indeed he had retrograded, for he was less content and more confused, and more . The medicine had the disease. Nevertheless, he awaited a second dose of it in the undestroyed illusion of its curative property.
In the he had behaved like a very sensible man. Without appetite, he had still forced himself to eat, lest his relatives should suspect. Short of sleep, he had been careful to avoid yawning at breakfast, and had spoken in a casual tone of Hilda’s visit. He had even said to his father: “I suppose the big Columbia will be running off those overseer notices this afternoon?” And on the old man asking why he was thus interested, he had answered: “Because that girl, Miss Lessways, thought of coming down to see it. For some reason or other she’s very keen on printing, and as she’s such a friend of the Orgreaves—”
Nobody, he considered, could have done that better than he had done it.
And now that girl, Miss Lessways, was nearly due. He stood behind the counter again, waiting, waiting. He could not apply himself to anything; he could scarcely wait. He was in a state that approached fever, if not agony. To exist from half-past two to three o’clock equalled in the dreadful inquietude that comes before a operation.
He said to himself: “If I keep on like this I shall be in love with her one of these days.” He would not and could not believe that he already was in love with her, though the possibility presented itself to him. “No,” he said, “you don’t fall in love in a couple of days. You mustn’t tell me—” in a wise, superior, slightly scornful manner. “I dare say there’s nothing in it at all,” he said uncertainly, after having strongly denied throughout that there was anything in it.
The recollection of his original to Hilda troubled him. She was the same girl. She was the same girl who had followed him at night into his father’s garden and merited his . She was the same girl who had been so unpleasant, so sharp, so rudely disconcerting in her behaviour. And he dared not say that she had altered. And yet now he could not get her out of his head. And although he would not admit that he constantly admired her, he did admit that there were moments when he admired her and deemed her unique and above all women. Whence the change in himself? How to it? The problem was insoluble, for he was intellectually too honest to say lightly that originally he had been mistaken.
He did not pretend to solve the problem. He looked at it with perturbation, and left it. The consoling thing was that ............