Presently he compared his watch and the terminus clock.  She should now be arriving.  He went out to meet her and do service.  Many cabs and carriages were peered into, couples inspected, ladies and their maids, wives and their husbands—­an August exodus to the Continent.  Nowhere the starry she.  But he had a fund of patience.  She was now in some block of the streets.  He was sure of her, sure of her courage.  Tony and recreancy could not go together.  Now that he called her Tony, she was his close comrade, known; the name was a caress and a promise, breathing of her, as the rose of sweetest earth.  He counted it to be a month ere his family would have wind of the altered position of his affairs, possibly a year to the day of his making the dear woman his own in the eyes of the world.  She was dear past computation, womanly, yet quite unlike the womanish woman, unlike the semi-males courteously called dashing, unlike the sentimental.  His present passion for her lineaments, declared her surpassingly beautiful, though his critical taste was rather for the white statue that gave no warmth.  She had brains and ardour, she had grace and sweetness, a playful petulancy enlivening our atmosphere, and withal a refinement, a distinction, not to be classed; and justly might she dislike the being classed.  Her humour was a perennial refreshment, a running well, that caught all the colours of light; her wit studded the heavens of the recollection of her.  In his heart he felt that it was a stepping down for the brilliant woman to give him her hand; a condescension and an act of valour.  She who always led or prompted when they conversed, had now in her generosity abandoned the lead and herself to him, and she deserved his utmost honouring.

But where was she?  He looked at his watch, looked at the clock.  They said the same:  ten minutes to the moment of the train’s departure.

A man may still afford to dwell on the charms and merits of his heart’s mistress while he has ten minutes to spare.  The dropping minutes, however, detract one by one from her individuality and threaten to sink her in her sex entirely.  It is the inexorable clock that says she is as other women.  Dacier began to chafe.  He was unaccustomed to the part he was performing:—­and if she failed him?  She would not.  She would be late, though.  No, she was in time!  His long legs crossed the platform to overtake a tall lady veiled and dressed in black.  He lifted his hat; he heard an alarmed little cry and retired.  The clock said, Five minutes:  a secret chiromancy in addition indicating on its face the word Fool.  An odd word to be cast at him!  It rocked the icy pillar of pride in the background of his nature.  Certainly standing solos at the hour of eight P.M., he would stand for a fool.  Hitherto he had never allowed a woman to chance to posture him in that character.  He strode out, returned, scanned every lady’s shape, and for a distraction watched the veiled lady