The smooth working of the huge machine made it only the
more sinister; one had but to remember what cold tyranny, what
elaborate fraud, were served by its manifold ingenuities, only to
think of the cries of anguish stifled by its monotonous roar.
Piers had undertaken a task and would not shirk it; but in spite of
all reasonings and idealisms he found life a hard thing during those
weeks of August. He lost his sleep, turned from food, and for a
moment feared collapse such as he had suffered soon after his first
going to Odessa.
By the good offices of John Jacks he had already been elected to a
convenient club, and occasionally he passed an evening there; but
his habit was to go home to Guildford Street, and sit hour after
hour in languid brooding. He feared the streets at night-time; in
his loneliness and misery, a gleam upon some wanton face would
perchance have lured him, as had happened ere now. Not so much at
the bidding of his youthful blood, as out of mere longing for
companionship, the common cause of disorder in men condemned to
solitude in great cities. A woman's voice, the touch of a soft hand
--this is what men so often hunger for, when they are censured for
lawless appetite. But Piers Otway knew himself, and chose to sit
alone in the dreary lodging-house. Then he thought of Irene, trying
to forget what had happened. Now and then successfully; in a waking
dream he saw and heard her, and knew again the exalting passion that
had been the best of his life, and was saved from ignoble impulse.
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