cation of his official
dignity against the slight that had been put upon it. A new point of
view had somehow sprung from his brief contact with the President. For
the first time, Cobbens and his kind appeared to him the provincials
they were. They no longer blocked his whole horizon, like the lion in
the way. Dim dreams of wider ambitions, vague exhilarations, stirred
within him. He began to think it possible to transcend Warwick. Thus
his temper was less bitter than before, his poise was less a pose, the
result of a new adjustment of values.

"Felicity," he began, almost happily, "I could n't help thinking, as I
stood there waiting for you, how often I have waited in the same way
before. Just think of it, Felicity, for years and years! It seems
almost a lifetime, so much has happened in the interval. Did you
notice this coat and cap? They 're the same I used to wear when you
began to take my car rather than any other. A pretty good disguise for
the mayor of Warwick, don't you think?"

A pain went through her heart, not for a lost love, but for the
vanished dreams of girlhood. The chord he had hoped to touch remained
mute. In view of the fact that she believed love to be dead between
them, this method of stimulating an outworn romance seemed sentimental
and insincere. Had he loved her, she might well have thought it boyish
and pathetic. What he spoke of as a disguise had seemed so natural as
to escape her notice; and this indicated the height from which she had
never really descended and could now never descend. He had lost his
great opportunity of appearing the mayor in her eyes. It was no part
of her plan, however, to emphasise this difference between them, for
she had seen what vindictive passions a realisation of the fact might
arouse within him. Full of the warmth of his own emotions, he failed
to grasp the significance of her unresponsiveness.

"But have you spoken to the bishop yet, as you promised to?" he asked
eagerly.

"No, I have n't--I could n't, yet."

"I 'm glad of it," he returned buoyantly. "I wanted another chance to
see you before you spoke to him, to set myself right with you. I did
n't mean to threaten you, Felicity. I knew that was no way to win
forgiveness, but I was n't myself. Can't you see how the long waiting
for you almost drove me mad? But now we 're together again in the old
way, and I feel that I can explain everything so that you can
understand. Everything tha