SO far René's success had come from his power to do what had been expected of him. He had done it without delight or enthusiasm but with the concentration which came from his lack of interest either in the past or the future. From the interest of others in himself he had been able to borrow a little excitement every now and then, but he could never sustain it. It was not lack of energy, mental or physical, but rather that, doing what was expected of him, he did it well enough to lead to further expectation, and this gave him a constant surprise at himself to keep his existence zestful. He was not altogether indifferent, but he could accept. He accepted that Linda loved him, and was equally prepared to accept that she loved him no longer, subject, of course, to any incidental pain he might suffer. Believing in everything that happened with no power of definition or intellectual curiosity, he could never at any given moment realize his position without reference to others, and therefore, when he found himself embroiled in this tender, disturbing relationship with Linda Brock, he needed to bring it to the test of all his other relationships--with his father, his mother, his brother, M'Elroy, Kurt, and Professor and Mrs. Smallman. He could not talk about it to any of them, but he hoped to find in all some appreciation of the new wonder that had come upon him, and he desired, for his comfort, to find out what in this new development was expected of him. Here he was baffled. Everybody was either tactful or insensible. Things inanimate had changed enormously for him. Streets, houses, trees, had taken on a new beauty, a friendliness that made room for his emotions; but people lagged distressfully, and he often had an unhappy sense of leaving them behind, or, as he talked and listened to them, they would dwindle. And yet, at the same time, he found them so wonderful that, in their failure to respond to his need, they seemed to him to be untrue to their own wonder. He knew not the nature of his need, but he was left subtly conscious of its being left unsatisfied. He ascribed his discomfort to his love, and called it "being in love." It gave him an insatiable desire for Linda's society, presence, contact; a harsh sensibility to her beauty; an appreciation of her physical qualities upon which he never dared to think, because it led him back in thought to the moment of her colloquy with his father when he had felt so strangely that he and his mother were not of their world. In this distress his mind could find ease in the idea of marriage. That settled the future and appointed an end to the force that urged him on so mysteriously and powerfully; but, accustomed as he was to living humbly in the present, he needed somehow to escape the isolation into which the desire for Linda had cast him. He worked harder than he had ever done, but when he was not working, and issued from the coolness of that limited mental activity, he was visited by a craving that not