But she made not the slightest effort to go there.  Beyond saying the words, she had no intention of doing so.  She could not even frame in her thoughts the utter blankness of the feeling that swept over her at missing an opportunity to see Peter.  She turned and went slowly up past the big shop windows that reflected the burning Plaza, and so came to the cool, great doorway of the St. Francis.  Inside was tempered light and much noiseless coming and going, meeting and parting.  Chinese boys in plum colour and pale blue went about with dustpans gathering fallen cigar and cigarette ashes; a pleasant traffic in magazines and cigarettes and candy and flowers was incessant, back in the dim wide passageways.

Cherry drifted into the big, deep-carpeted waiting-room; there were other women there, sunk into the big leather chairs, watching the doors, and glancing at the clock.  The high windows gave directly upon Powell Street, where cable-cars were grating to and fro, and where motor-horns honked, but all noises were filtered here to a sort of monotone, and the effect of the room was of silence.  When a man came hastily in the door one woman rose, there was a significant smile, a murmured greeting, before the two vanished.

In a luxurious chair Cherry waited.  Peter certainly would not come in until half-past twelve, perhaps not then.  Long before that time she might decide to go away; meanwhile, this was a pleasant and restful place to be.  It was cool in here, and the murmuring and waiting women left in the air the delicate scents of perfumes and of the flowers they wore.

Suddenly, with a spring of her heart against her ribs, she saw Peter’s dark head with its touches of iron gray.  Groomed and brushed scrupulously as always, with the little limp, yet as always dignified and erect, he came to stand before her, and she stood up, and their hands met.  Flushed and a little confused, she followed him to an inconspicuous table in a corner of the dining room.  Then the dreamlike unreality and beauty of their hours together began again.  Cherry felt adjusted, untrammelled, at ease; she felt that all the uncomfortable sensations of the past two hours were absurd, forgotten.

“Did you expect me to meet you?” she smiled.  For answer he looked at her thoughtfully a minute before his own face lighted with a bright smile.

“I don’t think I thought of your not being there,” he confessed.  “I was simply moving all morning toward the instant of meeting.  I had a mental picture of you, always before my eyes, and when you stood up there, it was just my picture come real!”

“If this is real!” she said, musingly.  “Sometimes my thoughts get so—­so mixed,” she added, “that I feel as if Alix and the valley—­ and Martin especially—­were all a dream, and this the true thing.”

“I know how you feel!” Peter answered.  He watched her, almost with anxiety, for a moment, then turned his attention to the bill of fare.  But Cherry was not hungry, and she paid small attention to the order, or to the food when it came.