ute alone.

Strange as this adventure was to a man of prominent station before the
world, and electrical as the turning-point of a destiny that he was given
to weigh deliberately and far-sightedly, Diana's image strung him to the
pitch of it. He looked nowhere but ahead, like an archer putting hand for
his arrow.

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