And he was perfectly aware also of his own power with women, often cynically aware of it.

But he could not flatter himself that so far he had any hold over the senses or the heart of Lucy Foster.

He thought of her eager praise of his Palestine letters--of the Nemi tale.

She was franker, more enthusiastic than an English girl would have been--and at the same time more remote, infinitely more incalculable! His mind filled with a delicious mingling of desire and doubt.

He foresaw the sweet approach of new emotions,--of spells to make 'the colours freshen on this threadbare world.' All his life he had been an epicurean, in search of pleasures beyond the ken of the crowd.