Chapter II - Page 2

conscious of a
yearning for her that perturbed him in the form of a dull, aching
restlessness; to feel the prod of desire to win to the walk in life
whereon she trod, and to have his mind ever and again straying off
in speculation and vague plans of how to reach to her. Also, when
his secret glance went across to Norman opposite him, or to any one
else, to ascertain just what knife or fork was to be used in any
particular occasion, that person's features were seized upon by his
mind, which automatically strove to appraise them and to divine
what they were - all in relation to her. Then he had to talk, to
hear what was said to him and what was said back and forth, and to
answer, when it was necessary, with a tongue prone to looseness of
speech that required a constant curb. And to add confusion to
confusion, there was the servant, an unceasing menace, that
appeared noiselessly at his shoulder, a dire Sphinx that propounded
puzzles and conundrums demanding instantaneous solution. He was
oppressed throughout the meal by the thought of finger-bowls.
Irrelevantly, insistently, scores of times, he wondered when they
would come on and what they looked like. He had heard of such
things, and now, sooner or later, somewhere in the next few
minutes, he would see them, sit at table with exalted beings who
used them - ay, and he would use them himself. And most important
of all, far down and yet always at the surface of his thought, was
the problem of how he should comport himself toward these persons.
What should his attitude be? He wrestled continually and anxiously
with the problem. There were cowardly suggestions that he should
make believe, assume a part; and there were still more cowardly
suggestions that warned him he would fail in such course, that his
nature was not fitted to live up to it, and that he would make a
fool of himself.

It was during the first part of the dinner, struggling to decide
upon his attitude, that he was very quiet. He did not know that
his quietness was giving the lie to Arthur's words of the day
before, when that brother of hers had announced that he was going
to bring a wild man home to dinner and for them not to be alarmed,
because they would find him an interesting wild man. Martin Eden
could not have found it in him, just then, to believe that her
brother could be guilty of such treachery - especially when he had
been the means of getting this particular brother out of an
unpleasant row. So he sat at table, perturbed by his own unfitness
and at the same time charmed by all that went on about him. For
the first time he realized that eating was something more than a
utilitarian function. He was unaware of what he ate. It was
merely food. He was feasting his love of beauty