I felt the need
of an hour's solitude to collect my thoughts and to think over the
events of the last twenty-four hours. I recognised that I was fast
becoming very intimate with Isaacs, and I wanted to think about him and
excogitate the problem of his life; but when I tried to revolve the
situation logically, and deliver to myself a verdict, I found myself
carried off at a tangent by the wonderful pictures that passed before my
eyes. I could not detach the events from the individual. His face was
ever before me, whether I thought of Miss Westonhaugh, or of the
wretched old maharajah, or of Ram Lal the Buddhist. Isaacs was the
central figure in every picture, always in the front, always calm and
beautiful, always controlling the events around him. Then I entered on a
series of trite reflections to soothe my baffled reason, as a man will
who is used to understanding what goes on before him and suddenly finds
himself at a loss. Of course, I said to myself, it is no wonder he
controls things, or appears to. The circumstances in which I find this
three days' acquaintance are emphatically those of his own making. He
has always been a successful man, and he would not raise spirits that he
could not keep well in hand. He knows perfectly well what he is about in
making love to that beautiful creature, and is no doubt at this moment
laughing in his sleeve at my simplicity in believing that he was really
asking my advice.
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