What a queer thing it was that the attraction of this muslin-frocked little hoyden should have been barely emphasized for him by Weevil’s desire for her, but increased to a point of shivering, electric sweetness, under the emotion of the “automatic young lady”! Oh! it had that within it that might lead him upon such a quest that nothing else would matter to him any more! He could feel even now, as he went along this stubborn hedge, the sort of scoriac desolation⁠—all delicate intimations become cinders and ashes in the mouth⁠—that would possess him, as this quest grew more and more concentrated! He felt within him the actual expression his face would come to wear, as in his maniacal pursuit he went to and fro over the earth, oblivious of all else.