Yet now it had become suddenly different

NICK Lansing arrived in Paris two days after his lawyer hadannounced his coming to Mr. Spearman.
　　He had left Rome with the definite purpose of freeing himselfand Susy; and though he was not pledged to Coral Hicks he hadnot concealed from her the object of his journey. In vain hadhe tried to rouse in himself any sense of interest in his ownfuture. Beyond the need of reaching a definite point in hisrelation to Susy his imagination could not travel. But he hadbeen moved by Coral's confession, and his reason told him thathe and she would probably be happy together, with the temperatehappiness based on a community of tastes and an enlargement ofopportunities. He meant, on his return to Rome, to ask her tomarry him; and he knew that she knew it. Indeed, if he had notspoken before leaving it was with no idea of evading his fate,or keeping her longer in suspense, but simply because of thestrange apathy that had fallen on him since he had receivedSusy's letter. In his incessant self-communings he dressed upthis apathy as a discretion which forbade his engaging Coral'sfuture till his own was assured. But in truth he knew thatCoral's future was already engaged, and his with it: in Romethe fact had seemed natural and even inevitable.
　　In Paris, it instantly became the thinnest of unrealities. Notbecause Paris was not Rome, nor because it was Paris; butbecause hidden away somewhere in that vast unheeding labyrinthwas the half-forgotten part of himself that was Susy .... Forweeks, for months past, his mind had been saturated with Susy:
　　she had never seemed more insistently near him than as theirseparation lengthened, and the chance of reunion became lessprobable. It was as if a sickness long smouldering in him hadbroken out and become acute, enveloping him in the Nessus-shirtof his memories. There were moments when, to his memory, theiractual embraces seemed perfunctory, accidental, compared withthis deep deliberate imprint of her soul on his.
　　Yet now it had become suddenly different. Now that he was inthe same place with her, and might at any moment run across her,meet her eyes, hear her voice, avoid her hand--now thatpenetrating ghost of her with which he had been living wassucked back into the shadows, and he seemed, for the first timesince their parting, to be again in her actual presence. Hewoke to the fact on the morning of his arrival, staring downfrom his hotel window on a street she would perhaps walk throughthat very day, and over a limitless huddle of roofs, one ofwhich covered her at that hour. The abruptness of thetransition startled him; he had not known that her meregeographical nearness would take him by the throat in that way.
　　What would it be, then, if she were to walk into the room?
　　Thank heaven that need never happen! He was sufficientlyinformed as to French divorce proceedings to know that theywould not necessitate a confrontation with his wife; and withordinary luck, and some precautions, he might escape even adistant glimpse of her. He did not mean to remain in Paris morethan a few days; and during that time it would be easy--knowing,as he did, her tastes and Altringham's--to avoid the placeswhere she was likely to be met. He did not know where she wasliving, but imagined her to be staying with Mrs. Melrose, orsome other rich friend, or else lodged, in prospectiveaffluence, at the Nouveau Luxe, or in a pretty flat of her own.
　　Trust Susy--ah, the pang of it--to "manage"!
　　His first visit was to his lawyer's; and as he walked throughthe familiar streets each approaching face, each distant figureseemed hers. The obsession was intolerable. It would not last,of course; but meanwhile he had the exposed sense of a fugitivein a nightmare, who feels himself the only creature visible in aghostly and besetting multitude. The eye of the metropolisseemed fixed on him in an immense unblinking stare.