He sorrowed not only for Hilaria, but for life. The news had given him
his first pang of dread about it; his trust in it was never to be quite
the same again. That was all, for him, that Hilaria had existed for,
simply to teach him so much of knowledge. It seemed odd, even to the
egoism of his youth, that she should have had so great a share in the
pattern of his life at one time only to go out of it so inevitably. He
was not to realise for many years how important the lesson was of which
she, by the mere news of her state, had taught him the beginnings. If
her contact with him formerly had been less, so would the shock of the
news have been. People have impinged more deeply upon others' lives and
both by their entry and their leaving of them stood for less.




CHAPTER X

BLIND STEPS


From that evening Ishmael entered upon a new phase of his London visit.
He told himself, when seriously considering the situation now and then,
that he was certainly not in love. He was deeply interested in Blanche
Grey, but if this were being in love, then was that emotion very
different from anything the books always led one to expect. For
instance, had the question been posed him by some wizard potent to
arrange the lives of humans, whether he would sooner let Cloom or Miss
Grey slip away from him, he would not have hesitated. His values were
not in the least upset. He felt certain things in spite of them, that