He looked round at the familiar objects of his room--the futile
little gimcracks with which he had surrounded an existence worthy of such
environments--the invitation cards on the draped mantelpiece, the little
glass vases of fantastic shape with a single bloom of stephanotis, the
hundred and one fantasies of a finicking generation wherein Art sappeth
Manhood. And his eyes were suddenly opened to a new world of things
which he could not do. He gazed--not without a vague shame--into a
perspective of incompetencies.
In the _laissez-aller_ of the unreflective he had assumed that life would
be a continuance of small pleasures and refined enjoyments, little
dinners and pleasant converse, Dora and a comfortable home, mutual mild
delight in flowers and table decoration. Into this assumption Seymour
Michael had suddenly stepped--strong, restless, and mysterious--and
Arthur became uneasily conscious of possibilities. There might be
something in his own life, there might even be something within himself,
over which he could have no control.
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