Lorimer was right; it was a special case, and he, as a psychologist, watched its development with interest. The specialist declares that a man absorbed in speculations is, naturally, fatally indifferent to all the other affairs of life. Philip had been attacked with what we will call mental absorption, a sort of bewitchment from which nothing could exorcise him, so to speak, but some great shock, powerful and unforeseen. All the ideas which Dora had taken into her head were false. Philip adored his wife. He was blinded by a thick veil, which he had not the courage to tear from his eyes. He was so sure of attaining his aim in a few days that he said to himself, "I shall soon be able to repair all my faults. A little while and everything will go smoothly again. I shall be free, master of myself once more, and there will be half a century in front of me, in which to compensate Dora for the anxiety I am causing her now." He was honest, and had only feelings of profound love and respect for his wife; but to a looker-on, to Dora above all, the fact was difficult to believe in, it must be confessed. In order to keep up close relations with Sabaroff, Philip had asked him to sit for his portrait. The General had accepted, and came three or four times a week to pose in the room which served Philip as a studio. Dora resigned herself to this humiliation. "He has not yet finished my portrait," she said to herself, "but that man's, he will finish fast enough." Not once, however, did she make a remark to Philip on the matter. Every Thursday Sabaroff came to call on Dora, who received him politely, but coldly. On several occasions he found himself alone with her, and Philip never thought of joining them. He ended by believing himself encouraged by Philip in the assiduity of his visits to Dora. This woman so impressed him that he never once ventured on a glib gallantry, scarcely even an ordinary compliment. He felt himself on new ground and not thoroughly at home in the presence of this being, who seemed never to have been soiled by even an impure glance. Before her he became almost timid, he the daring Don Juan of courts, who made light of women whose conquest he had so often found easy, and for whom he felt the sentiment of the Oriental, a sentiment made up of condescension and fierce and short-lived passion, followed by contempt. Not more than one woman had ever been able to boast of having been his mistress longer than a week. And yet he had loved once in his life, loved with a noble passion a young girl with a face full of lofty beauty, eyes in whose look were depths of loyalty and truth, and on whose brow purity sat enthroned. And that woman, whom he had thus loved, whose image had never become completely effaced from his memory--that woman was Dora! whom he here found again lovelier still than in bygone years, and married to a man who was evidently absorbed in his invention and his calculations.