As soon as he saw his last chance vanish, he
went to his own room, to the solitude of its balcony in the shadow of the
projecting facade with the moonlight flooding the rocks and the sea.
As he sat smoking, the recession came, the reaction from weeks of nervous
tension. And with the ebb of the tide entered that Visitor who alone has
the privilege of the innermost chamber where lives the man himself,
unmasked of all vanity and show and pretense. The visit was not unexpected;
for at every such crisis every one is certain of a call from this Visitor,
this merciless critic, plain and rude of speech, rare and reluctant in
praise, so mocking in our moments of elation, so cruelly frank about our
follies and self-excuses when he comes in our moments of depression.
"So you are going to marry?" the Visitor said abruptly. "I thought you had
made up your mind on that subject long ago."
"Love changes a man's point of view," Howard replied, timid and apologetic
before this quiet, relentless other-self.
"But it doesn't change the facts of life, does it? It doesn't change
character, does it?"
"I think so. For instance, it has changed me. It has made a man of me. It
has been the inspiration of the past year, strengthening me, making me
ambitious, energetic.
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