None the less was it a truth that he thought himself capable of saying good-bye to the wonderful girl, and posting off to his literary work.

Why expose himself to temptation?
Because he chose to; because it was pleasant; surely an excellent reason.
If only he hadn't come up against that confounded artist-fellow! That had upset him, most absurdly.

A half good-looking sort of fellow: a fellow who could prate with a certain _brio_; not unlikely to make something of a figure in the eyes of a girl like Cecily.

And what then?
Before now, Elgar had confessed to a friend that he couldn't read the marriage-column in a newspaper without feeling a distinct jealousy of all the male creatures there mentioned.
He sought out a _caffe_, and sat there for an hour, drinking a liquor that called itself lacryma-Christi, but would at once have been detected for a pretender by a learned palate.

He drank it for the first time, and tried to enjoy it, but his mind kept straying to alien things.