CHAPTER VI
ARMITAGE walked back to the hotel. The wind was bitter and there was a dash of rain in it. But he minded neither the wind nor the rain nor the long walk. There are times when the mind is so busy that physical weariness and discomfort are unnoticeable.
He was astounded and miserable and distressed. Not because he had fallen in love with Doris Athelstone. Propinquity made such a thing more or less inescapable. It was not that he had fallen in love with her; it was because he could fall in love with her. He doubted himself. He was miserable and unhappy because he did not believe that he was capable of loving deeply.
He had felt almost exactly the same as on that day Clare Wendell had become the
90
