BOOK THE THIRD: De Stancy
Captain De Stancy was a changed man. A hitherto well- repressed energy was
giving him motion towards long-shunned consequences. His features were,
indeed, the same as before; though, had a physiognomist chosen to study them
with the closeness of an astronomer scanning the universe, he would doubtless
have discerned abundant novelty.
In recent years De Stancy had been an easy, melancholy, unaspiring officer,
enervated and depressed by a parental affection quite beyond his control for the
graceless lad Dare- -the obtrusive memento of a shadowy period in De Stancy's
youth, who threatened to be the curse of his old age. Throughout a long space
he had persevered in his system of rigidly incarcerating within himself all instincts
towards the opposite sex, with a resolution that would not have disgraced a much
stronger man. By this habit, maintained with fair success, a chamber of his
nature had been preserved intact during many later years, like the one solitary
sealed-up cell occasionally retained by bees in a lobe of drained honey-comb.
And thus, though he had irretrievably exhausted the relish of society, of ambition,
of action, and of his profession, the love-force that he had kept immured alive
was still a reproducible thing.
The sight of Paula in her graceful performance, which the judicious Dare had so
carefully planned, led up to and heightened by subtle accessories, operated on
De Stancy's surprised soul with a promptness almost magical.
On the evening of the self-same day, having dined as usual, he retired to his
rooms, where he found a hamper of wine awaiting him. It had been anonymously
sent, and the account was paid. He smiled grimly, but no longer with heaviness.
In this he instantly recognized the handiwork of Dare, who, having at last broken
down the barrier which De Stancy had erected round his heart for so many years,
acted like a skilled strategist, and took swift measures to follow up the advantage
so tardily gained.
Captain De Stancy knew himself conquered: he knew he should yield to Paula--
had indeed yielded; but there was now, in his solitude, an hour or two of reaction.
He did not drink from the bottles sent. He went early to bed, and lay tossing
thereon till far into the night, thinking over the collapse. His teetotalism had, with
the lapse of years, unconsciously become the outward and visible sign to himself
of his secret vows; and a return to its opposite, however mildly done, signified
with ceremonious distinctness the formal acceptance of delectations long
forsworn.
But the exceeding freshness of his feeling for Paula, which by reason of its long
arrest was that of a man far under thirty, and was a wonder to himself every
