“I--something--a little,” murmured the unconscionable gipsy. “I can see monsieur’s face--far or near--which is it?” She put up a timid hand. Her fingers fluttered like a moth against his temple. “I don’t think I am blind, monsieur. My eyes----” In his jubilation he took her head between his palms, and, with a boyish laugh, kissed each of the blue flowers--to make them open, he said. “No, I am not blind,” said she. CHAPTER X. Mr Murk, recalling, on the morning after the storm, certain ultra-fervid expressions of remorse into which, during it, he had been betrayed, and realising, possibly, how of a saint and a sinner the latter had proved the blinder, turned the search-light of his recovered vision inwards, and examined his conscience like the most ruthlessly introspective Catholic. He worked out the sum of argument very coolly and carefully; and the result, condensed from many germinant postulates, showed itself arithmetically inevitable. “If I intrigue, I sacrifice my independence, my free outlook, my peace of mind, my position in relation to my art--comprehensively, my principles. “_Enfin_--on the other hand, I gain a very stomachy little white powder in a spoonful of jam. “Taking one from four, therefore, I find myself debited with three charges that it is ridiculous to incur. Love, in short, is a creditor I have no desire to be called upon to compound with. I will cut my visit a little finer than I had intended, and go on to Paris at once. Perhaps--for I have not finished my Madonna, and the model curiously interests me--I will return to Méricourt by-and-by, when this shadow of a romance has drifted away with the cloud that threw it.” Thus far only he temporised with his inclinations. For the rest, it appeared, he likened that which most men feel as a flame to an amorphous blot of darkness travelling across his sunlight. The point of view of the girl did not enter into his calculations. Possibly--most probably, indeed--he could not conceive himself inspiring a devouring passion. He knew innately, he thought, his limits--the length of his tether, moral, intellectual, and physical--and had never the least wish to affect, for the sake of self-glorification, a condition of mind or body that he was unable to recognise as his own. This led him to that serene appreciation of his personal capabilities that passes, in the eye of the world, for insufferable conceit. For to boast of knowing oneself is to assume a social importance on the strength of an indifferent introduction. Public opinion will never take one at one’s own valuation. It must be educated up to the point of one’s highest achievement. To say out, “I know I can do this thing,” is to deprive it (public opinion) of the right to exercise and justify itself.