“They were my mother’s,” he said.  “I have had them restrung—­for you.”

“Oh, Hugh!” she cried.  She could find no words to express the tremor within.  And she stood passively, her eyes half closed, while he clasped the string around the lace collar that pressed the slender column of her neck and kissed her.

Even the humble beings who work in hotels are responsive to unusual disturbances in the ether.  At the Barnstable, a gala note prevailed:  bell boys, porters, clerk, and cashier, proud of their sudden wisdom, were wreathed in smiles.  A new automobile, in Chiltern’s colours, with his crest on the panel, was panting beside the curb.

“I meant to have had it this morning,” he apologized as he handed her in, “but it wasn’t ready in time.”

Honora heard him, and said something in reply.  She tried in vain to rouse herself from the lethargy into which she had fallen, to cast off the spell.  Up Fifth Avenue they sped, past meaningless houses, to the Park.  The crystal air of evening was suffused with the level evening light; and as they wound in and out under the spreading trees she caught glimpses across the shrubbery of the deepening blue of waters.  Pools of mystery were her eyes.

The upper West Side is a definite place on the map, and full, undoubtedly, of palpitating human joys and sorrows.  So far as Honora was concerned, it might have been Bagdad.  The automobile had stopped before a residence, and she found herself mounting the steps at Chiltern’s side.  A Swedish maid opened the door.

“Is Mr. White at home?” Chiltern asked.

It seemed that “the Reverend Mr. White” was.  He appeared, a portly gentleman with frock coat and lawn tie who resembled the man in the moon.  His head, like polished ivory, increased the beaming effect of his welcome, and the hand that pressed Honora’s was large and soft and warm.  But dreams are queer things, in which no events surprise us.

The reverend gentleman, as he greeted Chiltern, pronounced his name with unction.  His air of hospitality, of good-fellowship, of taking the world as he found it, could not have been improved upon.  He made it apparent at once that nothing could surprise him.  It was the most natural circumstance in life that two people should arrive at his house in an automobile at half-past six in the evening and wish to get married:  if they chose this method instead of the one involving awnings and policemen and uncomfortably-arrayed relations and friends, it was none of Mr. White’s affair.  He led them into the Gothic sanctum at the rear of the house where the famous sermons were written that shook the sounding-board of the temple where the gentleman preached,—­the sermons that sometimes got into the newspapers.  Mr. White cleared his throat.

“I am—­very familiar with your name, Mr. Chiltern,” he said, “and it is a pleasure to be able to serve you, and the lady who is so shortly to be your wife.  Your servant arrived with your note at four o’clock.  Ten minutes later, and I should have missed him.”