f it. What, I
asked myself, could be so much worth her while as to have to be paid for
by so much apparent reluctance? But at last I saw her through a vista of
open doors, and as I forthwith went to her--she took no step to meet
me--I was doubtless impressed afresh with the "pull" that in social
intercourse a woman always has. She was able to assume on the spot by
mere attitude and air the appearance of having been ready and therefore
inconvenienced. Oh, I saw soon enough that she was ready and that one of
the forms of her readiness would be precisely to offer herself as having
acted entirely to oblige me--to give me, as a sequel to what had already
passed between us, the opportunity for which she had assured me I should
thank her before I had done with her. Yet, as I felt sure, at the same
time, that she had taken a line, I was curious as to how, in her
interest, our situation could be worked. What it had originally left us
with was her knowing I was wrong. I had promised her, on my honour, to
be candid, but even if I were disposed to cease to contest her
identification of Mrs. Server I was scarce to be looked to for such an
exhibition of gratitude as might be held to repay her for staying so
long out of bed. There were in short elements in the business that I
couldn't quite clearly see handled as favours to me. Her dress gave,
with felicity, no sign whatever of preparation for the night, and if,
since our last words, she had stood with any anxiety whatever before her
glass, it had not been to remove a jewel or to alter the place of a
flower. She was as much under arms as she had been on descending to
dinner--as fresh in her array as if that banquet were still to come. She
met me in fact as admirably--that was the truth that covered every
other--as if she had been able to guess the most particular curiosity
with which, from my end of the series of rooms, I advanced upon her.

A part of the mixture of my thoughts during these seconds had been the
possibility--absurd, preposterous though it looks when phrased here--of
some change in her person that would correspond, for me to the other
changes I had had such keen moments of flattering myself I had made out.
I had just had them over in the smoking-room, some of these differences,
and then had had time to ask myself if I were not now to be treated to
the vision of the greatest, the most wonderful, of all. I had already,
on facing her, after my last moments with Lady John, s