Page:Imre.pdf/193

191 The dread of Karvaly's detection, the struggle with himself to subdue passion, not merely to hide it, and along with these nerve-wearing solicitudes, the sense of what the suspicion of the rest of the world about him would inevitably bring on his head, had put Imre, little by little, into a sort of panic. He maintained an exaggerated attitude of safety, that had wrought on him unluckily, in many a valuable social relation. He wore his mask each and every instant; resolving to make it his natural face before himself! Having, discovered, through intimacy with Karvaly how a warm friendship on the part of the homosexual temperament, over and over takes to itself the complexion of homosexual love—the one emotion constantly likely to rise in the other and to blend itself inextricably into its alchemy—Imre had simply sworn to make no intimate friendship again! This, without showing himself in the least unfriendly; indeed with his being more hail-fellow-well-met with his comrades than otherwise.