He was now, he realized dimly, at the crucial
point of his existence: with Meta Beggs, in that
world of which Paris was the prefigurement, he
might still wring from life a measure of the sharp
pleasures of tempestuous youth and manhood; he
might still dance to the piping of the senses. With
Lettice in Greenstream he would rapidly sink into
the dullness of increasing age.

He was vaguely conscious of the baseness of the
mere weighing of such a choice; but he was engulfed
in his overmastering egotism; his sense of
obligation was dulled by the supreme selfishness of
a lifetime, of a lifetime of unbridled temper and
appetite, of a swaggering self-esteem which the remorseless
operation of fate had ignored, had passed
indifferently by, leaving him in complete ignorance
of the terrible and grim possibilities of human mischance.

He had suffered at the loss of his dwelling, but
principally it had been his pride that had borne the
wound; Clare's death had affected him finally as the
arbitrary removal of a sentimental object for his
care, on which to lavish the gifts of his large generosity.

He sat revolving in his mind the choice of paths
which seemed to open for his decision in such different
directions, which seemed to await the simple ordering
of his footsteps as he chose. The night

[[247]]

p246 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p247w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p248

v?