it. Now that the moment was really come to declare himself the owner of
a motor-car, he grew timid and nervous. He would have liked to hide his
hat. But then Denry was quite different from our common humanity. He was
capable even of feeling awkward in a new suit of clothes. A singular
person.

"Hello!" she greeted him.

"Hello!" he greeted her.

Their hands touched.

"Father hasn't come yet," she added. He fancied she was not quite at
ease.

"Well," he said, "what's this surprise."

She motioned him into the drawing-room.

The surprise was a wonderful woman, brilliant in black--not black silk,
but a softer, delicate stuff. She reclined in an easy-chair with
surpassing grace and self-possession. A black Egyptian shawl, spangled
with silver, was slipping off her shoulders. Her hair was dressed--that
is to say, it was _dressed_; it was obviously and thrillingly a
work of elaborate art. He could see her two feet and one of her ankles.
The boots, the open-work stocking--such boots, such an open-work
stocking, had never been seen in Bursley, not even at a ball! She was in
mourning, and wore scarcely any jewellery, but there was a gleaming tint
of gold here and there among the black, which resulted in a marvellous
effect of richness.

The least experienced would have said, and said rightly: "This must be a
woman of wealth and fashion." It was the detail that finished the
demonstration. The detail was incredible. There might have been ten
million stitches in the dress. Ten sempstresses might have worked on the
dress for ten years. An examination of it under a microscope could but
have deepened one's amazement at it.

She was something new in the Five Towns, something quite new.

Denry was not equal to the situation. He seldom was equal to a small
situation. And although he had latterly acquired a considerable amount
of social _savoir_, he was constantly mislaying it, so that he
could not put his hand on it at the moment when he most required it, as
now.

"Well, Denry!" said the wondrous creature in black, softly.

And he collected himself as though for a plunge, and said:

"Well, Ruth!"

This was the woman whom he had once loved, kissed, and engaged himself
to marry. He was relieved that she had begun with Christian names,
because he could not recall her surname. He could not even remember
whether he had ever heard it. All he knew was that, after leaving
Bursley to join her father in Birmingham, she had mar