This morning, his Highgate lodgings seemed to Dymchurch, a very cave in the wilderness.

The comforts and the graceful things amid which he lived had bat all meaning; unless, indeed, they symbolised a dilettante decadence of which he ought to be heartily ashamed.

He ran over the contents of the provincial newspaper, and in every column found something that rebuked him.

These municipal proceedings, what zeal and capability they implied! Was it not better, a thousand times, to be excited about the scheme for paving "Burgess Lane" than to sit here amid books and pictures, and do nothing at all but smoke one's favourite mixture?
The world hummed about him with industry, with triumphant effort; and he alone of all men could put his hand to nothing.
His thought somehow turned upon Miss Tomalin.

What was it that he found so piquant in that half-educated, indifferently-bred girl?
Might it not be that she represented an order of Society with which he had no acquaintance, that vague multitude between the refined middle class and the rude toilers, which, as he knew theoretically, played such an important part in modern civilisation?
Among these people, energy was naked, motives were direct.