He prolonged it a little, in the immediate neighbourhood, after he had quitted his chair; and the upshot of the whole morning for him was that his campaign had begun.

He had wanted to put himself in relation, and he would be hanged if he were NOT in relation.

He was that at no moment so much as while, under the old arches of the Odeon, he lingered before the charming open-air array of literature classic and casual.

He found the effect of tone and tint, in the long charged tables and shelves, delicate and appetising; the impression--substituting one kind of low-priced consommation for another--might have been that of one of the pleasant cafes that overlapped, under an awning, to the pavement; but he edged along, grazing the tables, with his hands firmly behind him.
He wasn't there to dip, to consume--he was there to reconstruct.

He wasn't there for his own profit--not, that is, the direct; he was there on some chance of feeling the brush of the wing of the stray spirit of youth.