nderly loving woman; a woman as nearly
approaching perfection as it was safe for a woman to go! This
marvellous woman was waiting for him with outstretched arms (why should
he doubt it?)--and just because Nature had at last succeeded in making
a temporary success of Ann's skin and had fashioned a rounded line
above her shoulder-blade! It made him quite cross with himself. Ten
years ago she had been gawky and sallow-complexioned. Ten years hence
she might catch the yellow jaundice and lose it all. Passages in
Sylvia's letters returned to him. He remembered that far-off evening
in his Paris attic when she had knocked at his door with her great gift
of thanks. Recalled how her soft shadow hand had stilled his pain. He
spent the next two days with Sylvia. He re-read all her letters, lived
again the scenes and moods in which he had replied to them.

Her personality still defied the efforts of his imagination, but he
ended by convincing himself that he would know her when he saw her. But
counting up the women on Fifth Avenue towards whom he had felt
instinctively drawn, and finding that the number had already reached
eleven, began to doubt his intuition. On the morning of the third day
he met Ann by chance in a bookseller's shop. Her back was towards him.
She was glancing through Aston Rowant's latest volume.

"What I," said the cheerful young lady who was attending to her, "like
about him is that he understands women so well."

"What I like about him," said Ann, "is that he doesn't pretend to."

"There's something in that," agreed the cheerful young lady. "They say
he's here in New York."

Ann looked up.

"So I've been told," said the cheerful young lady.

"I wonder what he's like?" said Ann.

"He wrote for a long time under another name," volunteered the cheerful
young lady. "He's quite an elderly man."

It irritated Matthew. He spoke without thinking.

"No, he isn't," he said. "He's quite young."

The ladies turned and looked at him.

"You know him?" queried Ann. She was most astonished, and appeared
disbelieving. That irritated him further.

"If you care about it," he said. "I will introduce you to him."

Ann made no answer. He bought a copy of the book for himself, and they
went out together. They turned towards the park.

Ann seemed thoughtful. "What is he doing here in New York?" she
wondered.

"Looking for a lady named Sylvia," answered Matthew.

He thought the time was come to