--Not half bad, answered Wallis quietly as he placed his holder once
more in a corner of his mouth.
A shaft of momentary anger flew through Stephen's mind at these
indelicate allusions in the hearing of a stranger. For him there was
nothing amusing in a girl's interest and regard. All day he had thought
of nothing but their leave-taking on the steps of the tram at Harold's
Cross, the stream of moody emotions it had made to course through him
and the poem he had written about it. All day he had imagined a new
meeting with her for he knew that she was to come to the play. The old
restless moodiness had again filled his breast as it had done on the
night of the party, but had not found an outlet in verse. The growth
and knowledge of two years of boyhood stood between then and now,
forbidding such an outlet: and all day the stream of gloomy tenderness
within him had started forth and returned upon itself in dark courses
and eddies, wearying him in the end until the pleasantry of the prefect
and the painted little boy had drawn from him a movement of impatience.
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