re was a tap at the door, and, not waiting for a summons, a
young girl entered, and stopped after a couple of steps.

"Oh, I didn't know--"

"What is it, dear?" said Mr. Mavick, looking up a moment, and then down
at the papers.

"Why, about the coachman's baby. I thought perhaps--" She had a paper in
her hand, and advanced towards the table, and then stopped, seeing that
her father was not alone.

Philip rose involuntarily. Mr. Mavick looked up quickly. "Yes,
presently. I've just now got a little business with Mr. Burnett."

It was not an introduction. But for an instant the eyes of the young
people met. It seemed to Philip that it was a recognition. Certainly the
full, sweet eyes were bent on him for the second she stood there, before
turning away and leaving the room. And she looked just as true and sweet
as Philip dreamed she would look at home. He sat in a kind of maze
for the quarter of an hour while Mavick was affixing his signature and
giving some directions. He heard all the directions, and carried away
the papers, but he also carried away something else unknown to the
broker. After all, he found himself reflecting, as he walked down the
avenue, the practice of the law has its good moments!

What was there in this trivial incident that so magnified it in
Philip's mind, day after day? Was it that he began to feel that he had
established a personal relation with Evelyn because she had seen him?
Nothing had really happened. Perhaps she had not heard his name, perhaps
she did not carry the faintest image of him out of the room with her.
Philip had read in romances of love at first sight, and he had personal
experience of it. Commonly, in romances, the woman gives no sign of it,
does not admit it to herself, denies it in her words and in her conduct,
and never owns it until the final surrender. "When was the first moment
you began to love me, dear?" "Why, the first moment, that day; didn't
you know it then?" This we are led to believe is common experience with
the shy and secretive sex. It is enough, in a thousand reported cases,
that he passed her window on horseback, and happened to look her way.
But with such a look! The mischief was done. But this foundation was too
slight for Philip to build such a hope on.

Looking back, we like to trace great results to insignificant, momentary
incidents--a glance, a word, that turned the current of a life. There
was a definite moment when the thought came to Alexander