ifteenth! She flung back the fortnight on his hands as if he had been
an idler indifferent to dates, instead of an active young diplomatist
who, to respond to her call, had had to hew his way through a very
jungle of engagements! "Please don't come till thirtieth." That was all.
Not the shadow of an excuse or a regret; not even the perfunctory "have
written" with which it is usual to soften such blows. She didn't want
him, and had taken the shortest way to tell him so. Even in his first
moment of exasperation it struck him as characteristic that she should
not have padded her postponement with a fib. Certainly her moral angles
were not draped!

"If I asked her to marry me, she'd have refused in the same language.
But thank heaven I haven't!" he reflected.

These considerations, which had been with him every yard of the way from
London, reached a climax of irony as he was drawn into the crowd on the
pier. It did not soften his feelings to remember that, but for her lack
of forethought, he might, at this harsh end of the stormy May day, have
been sitting before his club fire in London instead of shivering in the
damp human herd on the pier. Admitting the sex's traditional right to
change, she might at least have advised him of hers by telegraphing
directly to his rooms. But in spite of their exchange of letters she
had apparently failed to note his address, and a breathless emissary had
rushed from the Embassy to pitch her telegram into his compartment as
the train was moving from the station.

Yes, he had given her chance enough to learn where he lived; and this
minor proof of her indifference became, as he jammed his way through the
crowd, the main point of his grievance against her and of his derision
of himself. Half way down the pier the prod of an umbrella increased his
exasperation by rousing him to the fact that it was raining. Instantly
the narrow ledge became a battle-ground of thrusting, slanting, parrying
domes. The wind rose with the rain, and the harried wretches exposed to
this double assault wreaked on their neighbours the vengeance they could
not take on the elements.

Darrow, whose healthy enjoyment of life made him in general a good
traveller, tolerant of agglutinated humanity, felt himself obscurely
outraged by these promiscuous contacts. It was as though all the people
about him had taken his measure and known his plight; as though they
were contemptuously bumping and shoving him like the inconside