But before that could be accomplished an
underlying motive must be discovered. That he searched for in himself;
suppose he were absolutely free, not tomorrow, that evening, but now--
Would he go to the office, to the affairs of the Zenith cigarette, and,
once there, would he come home again--the four thirty-seven train and
the Ford in the shed by the station? Lee couldn't answer this finally.
A road led over the hills on the right, beyond a horizon of trees. He
knew it for only a short distance; where ultimately it led he had no
idea. But it was an enticing way, and he had an idiotic impulse to turn
aside, follow it, and never come back any more. Actually he almost cut
in, and he had to swing the car sharply to the left.
If he had been in trouble or debt, if his life had been a failure, he
would have understood his impulse; but as it was, with Fanny and Helena
and Gregory, all his flourishing affairs--why, it was insanity!
However, what absorbed him in his present state of mind, of inquiry,
was its honesty; nothing could be served by conventional protests and
nice sentiments. Lee had long wanted to escape from life, from the
accumulating limiting circumstances. Or was it death he tried to avoid?
What became clearest was that, of all the things which had happened to
him, he would not, at the beginning, have deliberately chosen any. One,
it seemed, bred by the other, had overtaken him, fastened upon him,
while he was asleep.
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