His own experience underwent a curious change. His speed slackened,
his head sank a little towards his breast, and the lamplight shone now
and again upon a face grown strangely tranquil. His thought was so
absorbing that when it became necessary to verify the name of a
street, he looked at it for a time before he read it; when he came to
a crossing, he seemed to have to reassure himself by two or three
taps, such as a blind man gives, upon the curb; and, reaching the
Underground station, he blinked in the bright circle of light, glanced
at his watch, decided that he might still indulge himself in darkness,
and walked straight on.
And yet the thought was the thought with which he had started. He was
still thinking about the people in the house which he had left; but
instead of remembering, with whatever accuracy he could, their looks
and sayings, he had consciously taken leave of the literal truth. A
turn of the street, a firelit room, something monumental in the
procession of the lamp-posts, who shall say what accident of light or
shape had suddenly changed the prospect within his mind, and led him
to murmur aloud:
"She'll do.
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