VI.
On leaving the hotel, Somerset's first impulse was to get out ofsight of its windows, and his glance upward had perhaps not the tendersignificance that Paula imagined, the last look impelled by any suchwhiff of emotion having been the lingering one he bestowed upon her inpassing out of the room. Unluckily for the prospects of this attachment,Paula's conduct towards him now, as a result of misrepresentation,had enough in common with her previous silence at Nice to make it notunreasonable as a further development of that silence. Moreover, hersocial position as a woman of wealth, always felt by Somerset as aperceptible bar to that full and free eagerness with which he would fainhave approached her, rendered it impossible for him to return to thecharge, ascertain the reason of her coldness, and dispel it by anexplanation, without being suspected of mercenary objects. Continuallydoes it happen that a genial willingness to bottle up affronts isset down to interested motives by those who do not know what generousconduct means. Had she occupied the financial position of Miss DeStancy he would readily have persisted further and, not improbably, havecleared up the cloud.
Having no further interest in Carlsruhe, Somerset decided to leave by anevening train. The intervening hour he spent in wandering into the thickof the fair, where steam roundabouts, the proprietors of wax-workshows, and fancy-stall keepers maintained a deafening din. Theanimated environment was better than silence, for it fostered in himan artificial indifference to the events that had just happened--anindifference which, though he too well knew it was only destined to betemporary, afforded a passive period wherein to store up strength thatshould enable him to withstand the wear and tear of regrets which wouldsurely set in soon. It was the case with Somerset as with others of histemperament, that he did not feel a blow of this sort immediately; andwhat often seemed like stoicism after misfortune was only the neutralnumbness of transition from palpitating hope to assured wretchedness.
He walked round and round the fair till all the exhibitors knew him bysight, and when the sun got low he turned into the Erbprinzen-Strasse,now raked from end to end by ensaffroned rays of level light. Seekinghis hotel he dined there, and left by the evening train for Heidelberg.