CHAPTER I
That night I didn't get on board till just before midnight and
Dominic could not conceal his relief at having me safely there.
Why he should have been so uneasy it was impossible to say but at
the time I had a sort of impression that my inner destruction (it
was nothing less) had affected my appearance, that my doom was as
it were written on my face. I was a mere receptacle for dust and
ashes, a living testimony to the vanity of all things. My very
thoughts were like a ghostly rustle of dead leaves. But we had an
extremely successful trip, and for most of the time Dominic
displayed an unwonted jocularity of a dry and biting kind with
which, he maintained, he had been infected by no other person than
myself. As, with all his force of character, he was very
responsive to the moods of those he liked I have no doubt he spoke
the truth. But I know nothing about it. The observer, more or
less alert, whom each of us carries in his own consciousness,
failed me altogether, had turned away his face in sheer horror, or
else had fainted from the strain. And thus I had to live alone,
unobserved even by myself.
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