Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THAT afternoon David had an engagement to play tennis with three lads of his age and liking, but he begged off on the score of a lame arm—a half-truth, he had slightly strained it a week before—and, instead, went for a long tramp into the country quite alone. It was a way he had, to get off by himself and walk till he was exhausted, when matters puzzled and troubled him, and on this day something vague and formless— impossible seemingly to pin down—stung him into a sort of sullen, restless anger. He had the feeling that a very beautiful thing, sweet and exquisite beyond words, had fluttered near to him, one infinitesimal moment had hung there, its wings touching his face, and then, because he would not put out his hand, had flown away again. He searched himself for the reason of that moment's paralyzing fear which had stayed him, but the reason, like the thing he had lost, fluttered beyond his reach. He could not grasp it, and his eyes could not see—yet. He called it Fate, and his dull, resentful anger turned to self-pity. He tramped the country lanes and the good green fields till he was tired and the sun was low, feelingvery sorry for himself over this blow which Fate had dealt him. It must be remembered that he was two-and-twenty. He reached home—the old brick house with its white-painted trimmings which an ancient housekeeper, faded and far gone in dry decay, kept habitable for him—towards seven, in time for a cold tub before his leisurely dressing. And shortly before eight set out for his dinner with Robert Henley. The rest of Croydon did not dine—or, to be quite accurate, sup—at eight. It took its evening meal at six sharp, and thereafter sat upon comfortable front porches and discussed its little world while the daylight hushed to dusk and the sweet ...