occurred, I would be standing on a gravel path dappled with
sunlight and the dancing shadows of maple leaves, and she would be
standing before me again with the breeze moving brown-and-gold strands
of hair at the edge of her firm white neck.

It is doubtful whether I thought of Judge Colfax, or chess, or the
strange meeting in the garden, or the Sheik at all. I wondered about
nothing save the question of how soon I could say to Julianna what lay
in my heart to say to her. Therefore it was necessary for me to review
in my mind many things when, upon waking a morning or two afterward, I
found, among the letters which my man had brought to the chair beside my
bed, a note from the girl herself.

I did not know at first that it was from her: I had never seen her
writing before. I remember that I said, "Who can this be?" and that I
studied the outside for several moments before I opened the envelope.

"My father," it said, "has not been very well, I think. I wish that you
could make a point of calling on him at the court-house some afternoon
this week. I want to know if the change in him rests partly in my own
imagination. You could determine this at once. I would be so grateful.
J. COLFAX.--P.S. Why not induce him to ask you to dinner. His indiscreet
daughter would be delighted. J. C."

This was the sort of note that she would write: it was not hysterical,
and yet it conveyed to me the urgency of her request; it was not
frivolous, and yet in its postscript it was boldly mischievous. It
accomplished the result she wished. She had wanted me to make up my mind
that I would see the Judge before night and to see her as soon as
possible. I determined to do both.

All day long it rained, drawing a wet shroud of gloom over the
pavements, the granite walls of the buildings, and the adamant
perspective of the streets. Standing in my office window, I could see
the flow of black umbrellas moving up and down town, like two torpid
snakes. But though I am ordinarily sensitive to the effect of a long
drizzle, it failed on that day to depress me. Life had freshened. There
was romance in it, possibilities, dreams. Instead of complaining to
myself that the sky had lowered until its opaque rotunda seemed to touch
the tops of the higher buildings, I rejoiced as I went uptown and looked
out the cab window at each open square, that the cold spring downpour
had freshened all the vegetation and brightened these city fresh-air
spaces as if by m