He would lose the thing he valued most in the world; he would be destroying himself and his own happiness.

There would be nothing for him afterward.

He seemed to see himself dragging out a restless existence on the Continent--Cannes, Hyeres, Algiers, Cairo--among smartly dressed, disabled men of every nationality; forever going on journeys that led nowhere; hurrying to catch trains that he might just as well miss; getting up in the morning with a great bustle and splashing of water, to begin a day that had no purpose and no meaning; dining late to shorten the night, sleeping late to shorten the day.
And for what?
For a mere folly, a masquerade, a little thing that he could not let go.

AND HE COULD EVEN LET IT GO, he told himself.

But he had promised to be in London at mid-summer, and he knew that he would go.