I talked much and boasted to Cothope--whom I suspected
of scepticisms about this new type--of what it would do, and it
progressed--slowly. It progressed slowly because I was restless and
uncertain. At times I would go away to London to snatch some chance of
seeing Beatrice there, at times nothing but a day of gliding and hard
and dangerous exercise would satisfy me. And now in the newspapers, in
conversation, in everything about me, arose a new invader of my mental
states. Something was happening to the great schemes of my uncle's
affairs; people were beginning to doubt, to question. It was the first
quiver of his tremendous insecurity, the first wobble of that gigantic
credit top he had kept spinning so long.
There were comings and goings, November and December slipped by. I
had two unsatisfactory meetings with Beatrice, meetings that had no
privacy--in which we said things of the sort that need atmosphere,
baldly and furtively. I wrote to her several times and she wrote back
notes that I would sometimes respond to altogether, sometimes condemn as
insincere evasions.
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