It may have been the state of his finances, which were low, that was responsible for rousing him, or it may have been simply the criticism in a girl's eyes. It was of the latter he thought more often as he sat wakeful in the sultry afternoon, with a mind in alert contradiction to the repose which his attitude suggested. He saw always in imagination the look of wonder and perplexity shadowing their brown depths, the hint of disapproval behind their surprise. He felt inexplicably desirous of justifying himself in this girl's opinion, of winning her approval, even her admiration. An almost boyish enthusiasm gripped him to do great things, splendid things, to force her into a generous acknowledgement of his worth. He knew it to be absurd, but the conceit held him, despite his realisation that in all probability the girl had ceased to think of him. Their meeting was but an episode in life; possibly he had made less impression on her mind, notwithstanding all that her features had seemed to express, than she had made on his. He doubted that he had gripped her imagination. It annoyed him to discover that he was more alive to her disapproval than to any other emotion she may have shown. There had been only disapproval, he believed; and he resented this thought, as he resented the feeling of his own insufficiency, futilely and yet with vehemence. He had got to make that right somehow. He could not let it rest at that. He was going to prove that he was not such a waster after all-- prove it to the girl, until the disapproval in her eyes was banished entirely. It was odd how the memory of that look stuck in his mind and exasperated him. He could not recall that he had ever been so deeply affected by a gaze before. It was as though he had turned a corner sharply and come unexpectedly up against some barrier he had never suspected of being there; it disconcerted him. But behind the embarrassment he was conscious of an immense curiosity, and coupled with the curiosity was an agreeable sense of adventure that coloured everything with the magic of romance. Not since he had attained to manhood had he felt particularly interested in any individual woman. As a boy girls had interested him; but of late years he had come little in contact with women, and had fallen into the habit of avoiding their society when it was available. Therefore the encounter of the morning was the more significant. He recognised that his action in accosting the girl was the outcome less of impulse than of volition--an instinctive, compelling sympathy which had given him readily to perceive and resent the criticism of her look, and had made it easy, and indeed imperative, for him to speak to her. The same urgency impelled him to seek her again, some power outside his will yet not in conflict with it.