The Long Run

He turned his head and looked past me with a queer expression at the low panelled door at my back. "Out of that very door they went--the two of 'em, on a rainy night like this: and one stopped and looked back, to see if I wasn't going to call her--and I didn't--and so they both went...."

III

"The Muse?" (said Merrick, refilling my glass and stooping to pat the terrier as he went back to his chair)--"well, you've met the Muse in the little volume of sonnets you used to like; and you've met the woman too, and you used to like her; though you didn't know her when you saw her the other evening....

"No, I won't ask you how she struck you when you talked to her: I know. She struck you like that stuff I gave you to read last night She's conformed--I've conformed--the mills have caught us and ground us: ground us, oh, exceedingly small!

"But you remember what she was; and that's the reason why I'm telling you this now....