he could not risk losing it by trusting it to the seat beside him. Until
he had won something that had been longer hers, it was a treasure not to
be lost.

Four miles toward town he passed the riding party and exchanged a fire
of gay salutations with them. When he had left them behind he could not
reach home too soon. He hurried to his rooms, hunted out a receptacle of
silver and crystal and filled it with water, placed the bunch of rose
haws in it and set the whole on his reading-table, under the electric
drop-light, where it made a spot of brilliant colour.

He had an invitation for the evening; he had cared little to accept it
when it had been given him; he was sorry now that he had not refused it.
As the hour drew near, his distaste grew upon him, but there was no way
in which he could withdraw without giving disappointment and even
offence. He went forth, therefore, with reluctance, to join precisely
such a party as he had many times made one of with pleasure and elation.
To-night, however, he found the greatest difficulty in concealing his
boredom, and he more than once caught himself upon the verge of actual
discourtesy, because of his tendency to become absent-minded and let the
merry-making flow by him without taking part in it.

Altogether, it was with a strong sense of relief and freedom that he at
last escaped from what had seemed to him an interminable period of
captivity to the uncongenial moods and manners of other people. He
opened the door of his rooms with a sense of having returned to a place
where he could be himself--his new self--that strange new self who
singularly failed to enjoy the companionship of those who had once
seemed the most satisfying of comrades.