Piers had no overweening
self-esteem; he judged his abilities more accurately, and more
severely, than any observer would have done; yet it was plain to him
that he would be more than capable, so far as endowment went, of
filling the high place occupied by this or the other far-shining
personage. He frankly envied their success--always for one and the
same reason.
Nothing so goaded his imagination as a report of the marriage of
some leader in the world's game. He dwelt on these paragraphs,
filled up the details, grew faint with realisation of the man's
triumphant happiness. At another moment, his reason ridiculed this
self-torment. He knew that in all probability such a marriage
implied no sense of triumph, involved no high emotions, promised
nothing but the commonest domestic satisfaction. Portraits of brides
in an illustrated paper sometimes wrought him to intolerable
agitation--the mood of his early manhood, as when he stood before
the print shop in the Haymarket; now that he had lost Irene, the
whole world of beautiful women called again to his senses and his
soul. With the cooler moment came a reminder that these lovely faces
were for the most part mere masks, tricking out a very ordinary
woman, more likely than not unintelligent, unhelpful, as the
ordinary human being of either sex is wont to be. What seemed to
_him_ the crown of a man's career, was, in most cases, a mere
incident, deriving its chief importance from social and pecuniary
considerations.
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