12/29 Each day his animal spirits surged higher; each day her sway of awe and respect grew more precarious. She thought his increasing silence, his really ridiculous formality of politeness, his stammering and red-cheeked dread of intrusion meant a deepening of the sense of the social gulf that rolled between them. She recalled their conversation about his relatives. "I suppose it's quite impossible for people of my sort to realize what a man of his birth and bringing up feels in circumstances like these." Little did she dream, in her exaltation of self-complacence and superiority, that the "poor fellow's" clumsy formalities were the thin cover for a tempest of wild-man's wild emotion. |