It had never been a part of his order of things.

He was not a marrying man.
But Hilma was an ever-present reality, as near to him as his right hand.
Marriage was a formless, far distant abstraction.

Hilma a tangible, imminent fact.

Before he could think of the two as one; before he could consider the idea of marriage, side by side with the idea of Hilma, measureless distances had to be traversed, things as disassociated in his mind as fire and water, had to be fused together; and between the two he was torn as if upon a rack.
Slowly, by imperceptible degrees, the imagination, unused, unwilling machine, began to work.

The brain's activity lapsed proportionately.
He began to think less, and feel more.