It was not moreover only the assurance so given that prompted him; it was the need of causing his conduct to square with another profession still--the motive he had described to her as his sharpest for now getting away.

If he was to get away because of some of the relations involved in staying, the cold attitude toward them might look pedantic in the light of lingering on.

He must do both things; he must see Chad, but he must go.

The more he thought of the former of these duties the more he felt himself make a subject of insistence of the latter.

They were alike intensely present to him as he sat in front of a quiet little cafe into which he had dropped on quitting Maria's entresol.