IN THE RAPHAEL GALLERY
hopelessly poor, and this cheat of a Medium was her stepfather! After all she was not well-educated, she did not understand his work and his aims. . . .
He suddenly perceived with absolute conviction that after the séance he should have gone home and forgotten her. Why had he felt that irresistible impulse to seek her out? Why had his imagination spun such a strange web of possibilities about her? He was involved now, foolishly involved. . . . All his future was a sacrifice to this transitory ghost of love-making in the streets. He pulled spitefully at his moustache.
His picture began to shape itself into Ethel and her mysterious mother and the vague dexterous Chaffery holding him back, entangled in an impalpable net, from that bright and glorious ascent to performance and distinction. Leaky boots and the splashings of cabs as his portion for all his life! Already the Forbes Medal, the immediate step, was as good as lost. . . .
What on earth had he been thinking about? He fell foul of his upbringing. Men of the upper or middle classes were put up to these things by their parents; they were properly warned against involving themselves in this love nonsense before they were independent. It was much better. . . .
Everything was going. Not only his work—his scientific career, but the Debating Society, the political movement, all his work for Humanity. . . . Why not be resolute—even now?. . . Why not put the thing clearly and plainly to her? Or write? If he wrote now he could get the advantage of the
365
