It was queer that such a mood of calm lucidity had come out of the fury of hate with which he rushed from her house. If it had not, he would have gone mad--smashed something, done something irretrievable. And instead here he was, calmly contemplating his own folly and hers! He must go on seeing her, of course; there was more reason than ever for seeing her; but there would be no danger in it now, only help for her--and perhaps healing for him. To this new mood he clung as to an inviolable refuge. The turmoil and torment of the last months could never reach him again: he had found a way out, an escape. The relief of being quiet, of avoiding a conflict, of settling everything without effusion of blood, stole over him like the spell of the drug-taker's syringe. Poor little Lita ... never again to be adored (thank heaven), but, oh, so much the more to be helped and pitied... This deceptive serenity had come to him during his call on Mrs. Landish--come from her very insensibility to any of the standards he lived by. He had gone there--he saw it now--moved by the cruel masculine desire to know the worst about a fallen idol. What he called the determination to "face things"--what was it but the savage longing to accumulate all the evidence against poor Lita? Give up the Mahatma investigation? Never! All the more reason now for going on with it; for exposing the whole blackguardly business, opening poor Jim's eyes to his wife's past (better now than later), and helping him to get on his feet again, start fresh, and recover his faith in life and happiness. For of course poor Jim would be the chief sufferer... Damn the woman! She wanted to get rid of Jim, did she? Well, here was her chance--only it would be the other way round. The tables would be turned on her. She'd see--! This in his first blind outbreak of rage; but by the time he reached Mrs. Landish's door the old legal shrewdness had come to his rescue, and he had understood that a public scandal was unnecessary, and therefore to be avoided. Easy enough to get rid of Lita without that. With such evidence as he would soon possess they could make any conditions they chose. Jim would keep the boy, and the whole thing be settled quietly--but on their terms, not hers! She would be only too thankful to clear out bag and baggage--clean out of all their lives. Faugh--to think he had delegated his own Nona to look after her ... the thought sickened him. And then, in the end, it had all come out so differently. He needed his hard tramp around the Park to see just why.