But at last one evening he did go. He went deliberately up to an omnibus “Clichy—St. Germain,” and took his seat under its roof. He was resolved to glut himself, without any atom of self-respect or traces of “resolve” remaining, in what he had been wanting to do for a week. He would go to Bertha’s rooms, even find out what had been happening in his absence. He might even, perhaps, hang about a little outside, and try to surprise her in some manner. Then he would behave _en maître_, there would be no further question of his having given her up and renounced his rights. He would behave just as though he had never gone away or the letters been sent. He would claim her again with all the appeals he knew to her love for him. He would conduct himself without a scrap of dignity or honesty. Once the “resolution” and pride of his retiring had been broken down, it was thenceforth immaterial to what length he went. In fact, better be frankly weak and unprincipled in his actions and manner, go the whole length of his defeat and confusion. In such completeness there remains a grain of superiority and energy. But once started in his bus, a wave of excitement and anxiety surged in him with hot gushes.—What awaited him? He fancied all sorts of strange developments.—Perhaps, after all, his journey would not satisfy his weaker movement, but confirm and establish definitely his more sensible resolves. Perhaps weaknesses would find at last the door closed against them. He smiled at the city as they passed through it, with the glee of a boy on a holiday excursion. PART V A MEGRIM OF HUMOUR CHAPTER I Some days later, in the evening, Tarr was to be found in a strange place. Decidedly his hosts could not have explained how he got there. He displayed no consciousness of the anomaly. He had introduced himself—now for the second time—into Fräulein Lipmann’s æsthetic saloon, after dining with her and her following at Flobert’s Restaurant. As inexplicable as Kreisler’s former visits, these ones that Tarr began to make were not so perfectly unwelcome. There was a glimmering of meaning in them for Bertha’s women friends. He had just walked in two nights before, as though he were an old and established visitor there, shaken hands and sat down. He then listened to their music, drank their coffee and went away apparently satisfied. Did he consider that his so close connexion with Bertha entitled him to this? It was at all events a prerogative he had never before availed himself of, except on one or two occasions at first, in her company. The women’s explanation of this eccentric sudden frequentation was that Tarr was in despair. His separation from Bertha (or her conduct with Kreisler) had hit him hard. He wished for consolation or mediation. Neither of these guesses was right. It was really something absurder than that that had brought him there.