But he merely stood with bent head considering the glaucous lairs of the water-world. He was not thinking. He was abandoned, unconscious of self or of any process, to what his eyes saw. He was in relation with the water, the fish, the beetles, through the reality which filled him and them and superseded delimitation. He had ceased to exist. He was no longer separate. But an onlooker would have been struck by his self-possession. Fulke went close to Lychnis and faint-heartedly touched her. His desire to put his arms round her nearly achieved itself. Distracted by himself and by his desire, he was now without inward resource. Entangled in the inhibitions of self-consciousness, he blushed, stammered, and did not know how to stand or where to put his hands. Ambrose made notes on the behaviour of all concerned. “Lychnis.” Fulke faltered a whisper. She gave no sign of having heard. “Lychnis. I.... Why won’t you talk to me? I could answer your questions.... I....” She made no answer. “I know things, too. I am intelligent. Oh, slime and hell! I hardly know what I’m saying!” “Yes, yes. You are very intelligent—very nice.” She spoke as if half-asleep. He stumbled back over the damp sand to Ruby. “Look at her!” he exclaimed. “She’s following him. He’s drawing her into his own mad world. What can we do, Ruby?” “I don’t know.” Ruby was dejected, alarmed. “She’s funny. I do wish she wouldn’t be. You don’t think——” She stopped. “I don’t like it much here. It’s not a place for people to be. Could I go back? Would they mind?” “My God!” he answered. “I think I’ll come with you. She’ll be all right. Ambrose is here. You and I—we are of no use to her.” Their eyes met in a perfect orgasm of wretchedness, and they glided off, the two of them, along the tunnel and up out of the water-world into the air and the sun. Hsiao appeared to be disappointed. He had given himself up to the contemplation of Ruby’s torch of red hair that glimmered through the shadows of the stalk-forest. But, instantly dismissing anything so painful as disappointment, he addressed himself to a contemplation of Lychnis. “She has hands like the white opening water-lily,” he was understood to say. “They would be cool and fragrant to the mouth, and delicately scented.” Wang Li tapped Ambrose on the shoulder, and pointed at his great-grandson. “A young man,” he said, “not free from the chains of desire.” “Desire?” queried Ambrose. “Desire. An itch of the mind; the mind still itching to experience, to understand, to know. He still takes an interest in things. He approaches the matter from the wrong angle. Seek first the kingdom of non-being and the world of appearances will be yours at a later date.” He notices a good deal for an old man who is permanently unconscious, thought Ambrose. Peripherally, no doubt.