Now that Gordon was gone, at any rate, gone for good, and not to return, he felt a sudden and singular sense of freedom.

It was a feeling of unbounded expansion, quite out of proportion, as he said to himself, to any assignable cause.

Everything suddenly appeared to have become very optional; but he was quite at a loss what to do with his liberty.

It seemed a harmless use to make of it, in the afternoon, to go and pay another visit to the ladies who lived at the confectioner's.

Here, however, he met a reception which introduced a fresh element of perplexity into the situation that Gordon had left behind him.