That evening he left most of his dinner untouched. When he had been writing all day he often did that. But he had done no writing for days. To Mrs. Sniffen’s fears and remonstrances he turned a deaf ear, denying that he was not perfectly well. “When does the last mail arrive?” he asked. He asked her this every evening, now, and she always instructed him, but he seemed to forget. He went upstairs to his study, dropped onto the lounge, lighted a pipe. What else was he to do--with the main-spring broken. He didn’t want to work. He didn’t intend to do any more writing, anyway, without the close coöperation of Eris. Something, evidently, was the matter with his work and he was certain that she was capable of telling him what it was. He knew that he was going to take a new view of things in general, but he wanted her to point it out. He wanted to start right; and be kept on the track for a while until accustomed. That, insensibly, he had become dependent upon the mind of another person, did not occur to him. At least not definitely. He realised that the world meant Eris, and that without Eris he had no other interest in the world, now. And, to this man who never before had evinced any interest in the world except as it concerned himself, it did not seem odd that every vital principle in him now surged around and enveloped this girl. The girl he had found asleep in a public park. Wherever he went, whatever he was doing, his mind was on her. Not selfishly; although a deep instinct was always telling him that whatever real work he ever was to do would come through her. Nor did he seem to think it odd that his personal ambition now remained in abeyance. Fluency, too, seemed to have departed: nimble mind and facile pen, the careless arrogance of youth and power, the almost effortless ability, flippant juggling with phrase and word, and the gay contempt for the emotion with which his audience responded when he tossed up the letters of the alphabet and let them fall into words--all these seem to have died. Without analysing it he was feeling already the tension of a new gravity in his character. It came, perhaps, from the constant presence of an unknown god--the one that always seemed to be waiting at the elbow of Eris--waiting to be recognized before speaking. The god with a thousand faces whose name is Truth. He appeared to be on friendly terms with Eris. But Annan had not yet become familiar with his faces. CHAPTER XXXII When Eris decided to go home she gave her lover a few hours’ notice and went without further preliminaries or fuss. Annan met her in the station,--a very sober-faced young man, solemn and sad. It was she who offered the serious kiss of parting; she who retained his hand, tender, reluctant, candidly concerned as to his health and welfare if left for a while entirely self-responsible. Neither saw any humour in the situation.