What a horrible blot they had made in his life--that man and that woman! What a foul trick they had played him! What filth they had wallowed in! And he--he had thought her the most beautiful creature in the world, an angel, a thing to be worshipped.

He laughed, almost without sound, his teeth biting hard on the stem of his pipe.

And the world he was looking upon laughed; the snow diamonds, lying thickly as dust, laughed; there was laughter in the sun, the warmth of chuckling humour in those glowing walls of forest, laughter in the blue sky above.
His hands gripped hard.
In this world he knew there could not be another woman such as she.
Here, in all this emptiness and glory, her shallow soul would have shrieked in agony; she would have shrivelled up and died.

It was too clean.

Too white.