He sat a long time
upon the beach; the night grew very cold, but he had no sense of it.
Then he went away and passed before the Casino again, and wandered
through the village. The Casino was shrouded in darkness and silence,
and there was nothing in the streets of the little town but the salt
smell of the sea, a vague aroma of fish and the distant sound of the
breakers. Little by little, Bernard lost the feeling of having been
startled, and began to perceive that he could reason about his trouble.
Trouble it was, though this seems an odd name for the consciousness of
a bright enchantment; and the first thing that reason, definitely
consulted, told him about the matter was that he had been in love with
Angela Vivian any time these three years. This sapient faculty supplied
him with further information; only two or three of the items of which,
however, it is necessary to reproduce. He had been a great fool--an
incredible fool--not to have discovered before this what was the matter
with him! Bernard's sense of his own shrewdness--always tolerably
acute--had never received such a bruise as this present perception that
a great many things had been taking place in his clever mind without his
clever mind suspecting them.
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