It had been more than this, he acknowledged, for he had brought out of it an element that lightened his life and vitalized his work, and gave an element of joyousness to his imagination--it was certain that he would go back there.

And Miss Bell had been in it and of it--so much in it and of it that he felt impatient with her for permitting herself to be herself in any other environment.

He asked himself why she could not see that she was crudely at variance with all color and atmosphere and law in her present one, and he speculated as to the propriety of telling her so, of advising her outright as to the expediency in her own interest, of being other than herself in London.

That was what it came to, he reflected in deciding that he could not--if the girl's convictions and motives and aims were real; and he was beginning to think they were real.

And although he had found himself at liberty to say to her things that were harder to hear, he felt a curious repugnance to giving her any inkling of what he thought about this.
It would be a hideous thing to do, he concluded, an unforgivable thing, and an actual hurt.