He did not drink from the bottles sent.

He went early to bed, and lay tossing thereon till far into the night, thinking over the collapse.

His teetotalism had, with the lapse of years, unconsciously become the outward and visible sign to himself of his secret vows; and a return to its opposite, however mildly done, signified with ceremonious distinctness the formal acceptance of delectations long forsworn.
But the exceeding freshness of his feeling for Paula, which by reason of its long arrest was that of a man far under thirty, and was a wonder to himself every instant, would not long brook weighing in balances.

He wished suddenly to commit himself; to remove the question of retreat out of the region of debate.

The clock struck two: and the wish became determination.