it all being in an air and place somewhere between dream and reality was perpetually with me. There were water-jets of pierced hose playing to right and left on the fresh grass: cooings of pigeons, and the flappings of their wings as they took flight: small birds taking baths in the dust: all the morning smiling and soft, and fresh-breathed. I thought of my first morning in Regent's Park, and of others, and that by degrees led me to thinking of Rosy.—What was she doing now? And Minnie? Such a dear beast, but infernally thin!
Later in the day I went to inquire about Mr. Brooke. Nothing new. 'The symptoms of small-pox, you know, sir, advance with order. This does not hurry itself for anyone. You must keep quiet.'—And so, day after day, I went, and it was always the same answer. 'This advances, this goes on advancing.'
I tried once to make myself unhappy by thinking about him. I could not. My sorrow for him was of itself hushed and not untender; but I could not make it into a disturbing gnat buzzing in my ears at all hours. After that one attempt, I let my thoughts wander on at pleasure, as I had always done before, and was contented; for such unceasing misery, producible, it seemed to me, by continued concentration of the mind on one subject, was not 'true.' I instinctively shrank from it.
My old wandering spirit came back upon me in Paris quickly enough. I had nothing to interest me indoors. Perhaps there were few things that could have taken me out of myself then: I was living for my 'dreams.' I saw many things before me.
So passed ten or twelve weary days, whose only memory to me is unrecorded weariness. At last I received a letter from Starkie, saying that he was back at the Hôtel de Manchester. Clarkson had decided to proceed, but Starkie had refused to do so until Brooke's fate was decided. I went down to him, and we discussed the whole matter together. Then the weary time began again. I spent most of it in wandering about Paris, reading, and talking with Starkie; but that last was only as we went down together to the
