of himself in relation to her. He
found himself involved in the most intimate sort of speculation
concerning her. From the beginning he did not close his eyes to a
possibility which might become a fact. Six months earlier he would
honestly have denied that any woman could linger so tenaciously in his
mind, a lovely vision to gladden and disturb him in love's paradoxical
way. Yet step by step he watched himself approaching that dubious
state, dreading a little the drift toward a definite emotion, yet
reluctant to draw back.

When Doris went about with him, frankly finding a pleasure in his
company, he said to himself that it was a wholly unwise proceeding to
set too great store by her. Chance, he would reflect sadly, had swung
them together, and that same blind chance would presently swing them
far apart. This daily intimacy of two beings, a little out of it among
the medley of other beings so highly engrossed in their own affairs,
would presently come to an end. Sitting beside her on a shelving rock
in the sun, Hollister would think of that and feel a pang. He would
say to himself also, a trifle cynically, that if she could see him as
he was, perhaps she would be like the rest: he would never have had
the chance to know her, to sit beside her hearing the musical ripple
of her voice when she laughed, seeing the sweetness of her face as she
turned to him, smiling. He wondered sometimes what she really thought
of him, how she pictured him in her mind. She had very clear mental
pictures of everything she touched or felt, everything that came
within the scope of her understanding,--which covered no narrow field.
But Hollister never quite had the courage to ask her to describe what
image of him she carried in her mind.

For a month he did very little but go about with Doris, or sit quietly
reading a book in his room. March drew to a close. The southern border
of Stanley Park which faced the Gulf over English Bay continued to be
their haunt on every sunny afternoon, save once or twice when they
walked along Marine Drive to where the sands of the Spanish Bank lay
bared for a mile offshore at ebb tide.

If it rained, or a damp fog blew in from the sea, Hollister would pick
out a motion-picture house that afforded a good orchestra, or get
tickets to some available concert, or they would go and have tea at
the Granada where there was always music at the tea hour in the
afternoon. Doris loved music. Moreover she knew music, whic