But he did not ask Julian to share any of these well-worn doings, and at first he did not acknowledge to himself why he did not do so.

He sought, more definitely than ever before, to gain amusement from amusements, and this definite intention, of course, frustrated his purpose.

His power of pleasure was, in fact, clogged by an abiding sense of dissatisfaction and depression.

And it was really his eventual knowledge of this depression's cause that led him to bar Julian out from these few days of his life.

All that he did bored him, and the more decidedly because he came to know that there was something which did not bore, which even excited him, something which he had resolved to give up.