The gathering emotion of the hour had united with opportunity to decide his future.

The decision was a relief; as he walked homewards, he was lighthearted.
On the way, he thought over everything once more, reviewing former doubts from his present position.

On the whole, he felt that fate had worked for his happiness.
And yet there was discontent.

He had never known, felt that perhaps he might never know, that sustained energy of imaginative and sensual longing which ideal passion demands.

The respectable make-believe which takes the form of domestic sentiment, that everyday love, which, become the servant of habit, suffices to cement the ordinary household, is not the state in which such men as Waymark seek or find repose; the very possibility of falling into it unawares is a dread to them.