No, he had
no anxiety about Miss Marty. But could he be sure of himself?
Had he really and truly and for ever put the ambitions of public life
behind him? Might they not some day re-awaken as this present wound
healed and ceased to smart?
If he sent this letter, he had burnt his boats. He halted before the
table and stood for a while considering; stood there so long that his
pipe went out unheeded. Ought he not to re-write his proposal and
word it so as to leave himself a loophole? As he conned the name on
the address, by some trick of memory he found himself repeating Miss
Marty's own protest against the Millennium: "Why couldn't we be let
alone, to go on comfortably?"
Confound the Millennium! Was it at the bottom of this too?
The plaguy thing had a knack of intruding itself, just now, into all
he undertook, and always mischievously. It was unsettling--Miss
Marty's word again--infernally unsettling. He had begun to lose
confidence in himself.
The room was hot. He stepped to the window, flung it open, and drank
in the cool air of the summer night. Below him lay the garden,
wherein Mr. Basket's statuary showed here and there a glimmer in the
velvet darkness. The Major turned back to the room and began to
undress slowly; removing his wig, his coat, his waistcoat, and laying
them on a chair. Next he turned out his breeches pockets and tossed
his purse, with a handful of loose silver, upon the bed.
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