He was so preoccupied with
material interests as to be capable of forgetting, for a quarter of an
hour at a stretch, that in all essential respects his life was wrecked,
and that he had nothing to hope for save hollow worldly success. He knew
that Ruth would return the ring. He could almost see the postman holding
the little cardboard cube which would contain the rendered ring. He had
loved, and loved tragically. (That was how he put it--in his unspoken
thoughts; but the truth was merely that he had loved something too
expensive.) Now the dream was done. And a man of disillusion walked
along the Parade towards St Asaph's Road among revellers, a man with a
past, a man who had probed women, a man who had nothing to learn about
the sex. And amid all the tragedy of his heart, and all his
apprehensions concerning hollow, worldly success, little thoughts of
absurd unimportance kept running about like clockwork mice in his head.
Such as that it would be a bit of a bore to have to tell people at
Bursley that his engagement, which truly had thrilled the town, was
broken off. Humiliating, that! And, after all, Ruth was a glittering gem
among women.
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