Had Gerda really meant by those final words that she would renew her relation with Bob Weevil? His mind visualized Bob Weevil now with an obsessed intensity. He saw his face, his clothes, his yellow boots. He saw his heavy gold watch-chain. Did the saints teach that one ought to love , as well as pity, every living soul? He could pity Bob Weevil. Bob Weevil had not asked to be born any more than he himself had. But to love the Bob Weevils of the world? Well! The great saints could do that. They could see the tragic necessity of birth branding the forehead of each child of Adam with a ghastly uniqueness! But it was too much to ask of him ⁠ ⁠… too much.⁠ ⁠…

It was at this moment in his abstracted progress that Wolf was confronted by nothing less than the entrance to the little driveway⁠—pompously entitled “private lane”⁠—that led to the villa of Bob Weevil’s father.