He eyed the windows furtively, hoping to catch her peering out. He commenced to tinker with his engine to give himself an excuse for delaying. Why hadn’t he accepted her breakfast invitation? Without her he felt utterly desolate.

Perhaps, if he stayed there long enough, she would come to him. The door would open and he would hear her saying shyly, “Ha! So it did break down!” Of course the sensible thing to do would be to walk boldly up the steps and ask for her. But love prefers strategy.

A man came strolling along the terrace. He was in gray flannels, wore a straw hat and was swinging a cane jauntily. He had a distinct waist-line and humorous blue eyes. He was the kind of man who keeps a valet.

“Hulloa! Something wrong?”

Teddy unstooped his shoulders. “Nothing much. Nothing that I can’t put right.”

“Well, I’m going in here.” The man glanced across his shoulder at the house. “If it’s water you want or anything like that, or if you’d care to use the phone——”

Teddy flushed scarlet beneath his tan. So this cheerful looking person was Horace who, cooperating with Fluffy, had set an example that had cheapened all love’s values?

“I won’t trouble you. Thanks all the same.”

Had he dared, he would have accepted the proffered assistance. But Desire would guess; they all would guess that he had acted a lie to gain an entrance. Contempt for the foolishness of his situation made him hurry. The car made a miraculous recovery—so miraculous that the blue eyes twinkled with dawning knowledge.

“Come a long way to judge from the dust! From Glastonbury, perhaps?”

Teddy jumped to the seat and seized the wheel. “Yes, from Glastonbury,” he said hastily.

As he drove away he muttered, “Played me like a trout! He’s no cause to laugh when he’s been refused himself.”

From the end of the terrace, he glanced back. The man, with leisurely self-possession, was entering the house. He felt for him the impotent envy that Dives in torment felt, when he saw Lazarus lying on Abraham’s bosom. He tried to jeer himself out of his melancholy. “I’m very young,” he kept saying. But when he imagined the party of three at breakfast, he could have wept.

Now that she had vanished, he remembered only her allurement. Her faults became attractions: her coldness was modesty; her defense of Fluffy, loyalty; her unreasonable request that he should come to America, love. What girl would expect a man to do that unless she loved him?

The reality of his predicament began to grow upon him. This wasn’t a romance or a dream he had invented; it had happened.

In a shadowed spot, overlooking the canal, he halted the car. He must think matters out—must get a grip on himself before he went further. Water-carts were going up and down. Well-groomed men were walking briskly through the park on their way to business. Boys and girls on bicycles passed him, going out by way of Hampstead for a day in the country. The absolute normality of life, its level orderliness, thrust itself upon him. He looked at the sedate rows of houses, showing up substantially behind sun-drenched branches. He saw their window-boxes, their whitened doorsteps, their general appearance of permanency. The men who lived in those houses wouldn’t say to a girl, “I love you,” in the first half-dozen hours of acquaintance. But neither would the girls say to a seven-hour-old lover, “Come to America”; they wouldn’t even say, “Run down to Southend,” for fear of being thought forward.

How distorted the views seemed to him now that he had held on the journey up from Glastonbury! They were the result of moonlight and of the pageant emotions stirred by a medieval world. How preposterously he had acted!

He tried to put himself in Desire’s place that he might judge her fairly. Irresponsible friends send her a telegram, saying that a man is coming to fetch her. Of course she believes that the man is to be trusted; but the first thing he does is to make love. In spite of that, she has to go with him; he is her one chance of getting to London. He at once commences to take advantage of her; she gets frightened and pretends to go to sleep in order to escape him. In the morning she discovers that he’s an old friend, but there’s too little time to replace the bad impression. At the last moment she feels sorry for him—begins to feel that she really does care for him; so she says the only thing possible under the circumstances, “Come to America.”

Obviously she wasn’t going to give herself away all at once. In that she had been wise, for, though he had wanted her to, he knew that if she had, she would have lowered her value.

But he wished she had shown more curiosity. She’d talked all about herself and hadn’t asked him a single question. She hadn’t even called him by his name—not once.

Then the cloud of his depression lifted. The truth came home to him in a flash: all these complaints and this unhappiness were proofs positive that at last he was in love. The splendor of the thought thrilled him—in love. The curtain had gone up. His long period of lonely waiting was ended. For him the greatest drama that two souls can stage had begun. Whither it would lead he could not guess. Everything was a blank except the present, and that was filled with an aching happiness. She was going from him. Already she was out of sight and sound; in a few hours he would be cut off from all communication with her. Yet he was happy in the knowledge that, however uncertain he might be of her, he belonged to her irrevocably. He longed to give himself to her service in complete self-surrender. His work, his ambitions, everything he was or could be, must be a gift for her. But how to make her understand this, while there was yet time?

He drove out of the park, passing by her house. Of her there was no sign. He wondered what they were doing in there. Was the man with the blue eyes taking his place and helping to strap her trunks? Or was he making love to Fluffy, while Desire looked on wistfully and wished—wished what he himself was wishing?

“You were a little judging?”

Yes, he had been judging. It had all taken place so differently from anything that he had conjectured. She herself was so different from the Desire he had imagined. All these years he had been preparing for her coming, but to her his coming had been an accident. That had hurt—hurt his pride, to have to acknowledge that she had almost forgotten the old kindnesses. And then she had tantalized him—-had taken a pleasure in treating him lightly. Perhaps all girls did that; it might be their way of defending themselves. Probably she hadn’t meant one half of what she had said, and had been trying to shock him. He couldn’t bear that she should think him narrow or censorious. The more he condemned himself, the more he longed to convince her of his breadth and generosity.

He found a florist’s and ordered a quantity of flowers.

“Shall I enclose your card, sir?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He was afraid that, if she knew for certain they were from him, she might not accept them.

“The lady’s leaving Euston on the boat-train for Liverpool, so you must get them to her at once.”

“You shall see the boy start, sir. Going on a liner, is the lady, sir?”

“Yes, to America.”

“Then, may I make a suggestion?” Desire would have said that the florist was very understanding; he rubbed his hands and looked out of the window to avoid any needless causing of embarrassment. “If I might make a suggestion, sir, I would say it would be very nice to send the lady seven bouquets—one for every day of the voyage.”

“But can it be done? I mean, will the flowers keep fresh?”

“Oh, yes, sir. It’s quite the regular thing. We pack them in seven boxes and we mark each box for the day on which it’s to be opened. We send instructions with them for the lady to give to the purser, to keep them on ice. Usually we slip five shillings into the envelope with the instructions. Then the lady finds her bouquet waiting for her on her plate each morning with her breakfast. The idea is that she’ll think of the gentleman who sent them.” This florist understood too much. He treated love as a thing that happened every day, which, of course, it didn’t. Teddy assumed an off-hand manner. “If it won’t take too long to make up the bouquets, I’ll have them as well.”

“As well as the cut flowers?”

“Yes.”

He helped to select the rosebuds, orchids and violets that were to lie against her breast It gave him a comforting sense of nearness to her. When the man’s back was turned he stooped to catch their fragrance and brushed his lips against their petals. Perhaps she might do the same, and her lips would touch the flowers where his had touched. By subtler words than language they would explain to her his love. When she landed in that far-away New York, he would be with her, for the flowers would have kept his memory fresh.

“Certain you won’t send your card, sir? It’s quite etiquette, I assure you.”

He shook his head irritably. The man took the hint and became absorbed in his own affairs. The boxes were tied up, the bill settled. Teddy watched the boy bicycle away on his errand and envied him the privilege of ringing her door-bell.

Breakfast! He hadn’t had any. He was too excited to feel hungry. He didn’t want to go home yet; he’d have to explain the abrupt ending of his holiday. He was trying to make up his mind to go to the station to see her off. As he drove about, killing time, he came to Trafalgar Square. That made him think of Cockspur Street and the shipping offices. He pulled up at Ocean House to find out what boats were sailing on that day. There were three of them, any one of which might be hers. A mad whim took him. Of course it was out of the question that he should go to America. How could he explain such a voyage to his parents? He couldn’t say, “I met Desire for a handful of hours and I’m in love.” Besides, he would never let any one suspect that he was in love. He wouldn’t even be able to mention his night ride from Glastonbury. It would sound improper to people who weren’t romance-people. He could see the pained look that would steal into his mother’s eyes if he told her. Nevertheless, although it was quite impossible, he asked for a list of sailings and made inquiries as to fares.

Then he drove to Gatti’s for breakfast and a general tidy-up. Something was the matter with the mirrors this morning. He saw himself with humble displeasure. Until he had met Desire, he had felt perfectly contented with his appearance; he had found nothing in it at which to take offense. But now he began to have a growing sense of injury against the Almighty. As he sat in the mirrored room, waiting for his meal to be served, his reflections watched him from half-a-dozen angles. They seemed to be saying to him, “Poor chap! May as well face up to the fact. This is how you look; and you expect her to love you.”

He compared himself with her. He thought of her eyes, her lips, her hair, the grace of her figure, the wonderful smallness of her hands. Her voice came back to him—the sultry, emotional, coaxing way she had of using it The arch self-composure of her manner came back—the glances half-mocking, half-tender which she knew how to dart from under her long lashes. She was more elf than woman.

All her actions and speech were unconsciously calculated to win affection. Her beauty was without blemish; the memory of her filled him with self-ridicule. He regarded himself in the mirrors with sorrowful despising. His face was too long, his eyes too hollow, his mouth too sensitive—nothing was right. How could she ever bring herself to love him? How monstrous it seemed to him now that he should have dared to criticize her! There was only one way to win her approbation—to make her admire his talent A thought struck him. Leaving his meal untasted, he ran out in search of a bookshop.

“A copy of Life Till Twenty-One. Yes, by Theodore Gurney. Can you deliver it?... No, that’s too lat............