Everything he saw was distasteful to him. He hated the blue and white,the intensity and definiteness, the hum and heat of the south;the landscape seemed to him as hard and as romantic as a cardboardbackground on the stage, and the mountain but a wooden screenagainst a sheet painted blue. He walked fast in spite of the heatof the sun.

　　Two roads led out of the town on the eastern side; one branched offtowards the Ambroses' villa, the other struck into the country,eventually reaching a village on the plain, but many footpaths,which had been stamped in the earth when it was wet, led off from it,across great dry fields, to scattered farm-houses, and the villasof rich natives. Hewet stepped off the road on to one of these,in order to avoid the hardness and heat of the main road,the dust of which was always being raised in small clouds by cartsand ramshackle flies which carried parties of festive peasants,or turkeys swelling unevenly like a bundle of air balls beneatha net, or the brass bedstead and black wooden boxes of some newlywedded pair.

　　The exercise indeed served to clear away the superficial irritationsof the morning, but he remained miserable. It seemed proved beyonda doubt that Rachel was indifferent to him, for she had scarcelylooked at him, and she had talked to Mr. Flushing with just the sameinterest with which she talked to him. Finally, Hirst's odiouswords flicked his mind like a whip, and he remembered that he hadleft her talking to Hirst. She was at this moment talking to him,and it might be true, as he said, that she was in love with him.

　　He went over all the evidence for this supposition--her sudden interestin Hirst's writing, her way of quoting his opinions respectfully,or with only half a laugh; her very nickname for him, "the great Man,"might have some serious meaning in it. Supposing that there werean understanding between them, what would it mean to him?

　　"Damn it all!" he demanded, "am I in love with her?" To that he couldonly return himself one answer. He certainly was in love with her,if he knew what love meant. Ever since he had first seen her he hadbeen interested and attracted, more and more interested and attracted,until he was scarcely able to think of anything except Rachel.

　　But just as he was sliding into one of the long feasts of meditation aboutthem both, he checked himself by asking whether he wanted to marry her?

　　That was the real problem, for these miseries and agonies could notbe endured, and it was necessary that he should make up his mind.

　　He instantly decided that he did not want to marry any one.

　　Partly because he was irritated by Rachel the idea of marriageirritated him. It immediately suggested the picture of two peoplesitting alone over the fire; the man was reading, the woman sewing.

　　There was a second picture. He saw a man jump up, say good-night,leave the company and hasten away with the quiet secret look of onewho is stealing to certain happiness. Both these pictures werevery unpleasant, and even more so was a third picture, of husbandand wife and friend; and the married people glancing at each otheras though they were content to let something pass unquestioned,being themselves possessed of the deeper truth. Other pictures--he was walking very fast in his irritation, and they came beforehim without any conscious effort, like pictures on a sheet--succeeded these. Here were the worn husband and wife sittingwith their children round them, very patient, tolerant, and wise.

　　But that too, was an unpleasant picture. He tried all sortsof pictures, taking them from the lives of friends of his, for he knewmany different married couples; but he saw them always, walled upin a warm firelit room. When, on the other hand, he began to thinkof unmarried people, he saw them active in an unlimited world;above all, standing on the same ground as the rest, without shelteror advantage. All the most individual and humane of his friendswere bachelors and spinsters; indeed he was surprised to findthat the women he most admired and knew best were unmarried women.

　　Marriage seemed to be worse for them than it was for men.

　　Leaving these general pictures he considered the people whom hehad been observing lately at the hotel. He had often revolvedthese questions in his mind, as he watched Susan and Arthur,or Mr. and Mrs. Thornbury, or Mr. and Mrs. Elliot. He had observedhow the shy happiness and surprise of the engaged couple had graduallybeen replaced by a comfortable, tolerant state of mind, as if theyhad already done with the adventure of intimacy and were taking uptheir parts. Susan used to pursue Arthur about with a sweater,because he had one day let slip that a brother of his had diedof pneumonia. The sight amused him, but was not pleasant if yousubstituted Terence and Rachel for Arthur and Susan; and Arthurwas far less eager to get you in a corner and talk about flying andthe mechanics of aeroplanes. They would settle down. He then lookedat the couples who had been married for several years. It was truethat Mrs. Thornbury had a husband, an............