have been and gone away again," said Edward Henry,
apprehensive.

"Oh, no! She wouldn't go away." Mr. Marrier was positive.

In the tone of a man with an income of two hundred pounds a week he
ordered a table to be prepared for three.

At ten minutes to five he said:

"I hope she _hasn't_ been and gone away again!"

Edward Henry began to be gloomy and resentful. The crowded and
factitious gaiety of the place actually annoyed him. If Elsie April
had been and gone away again, he objected to such silly feminine
conduct. If she was merely late, he equally objected to such
unconscionable inexactitude. He blamed Mr. Marrier. He considered that
he had the right to blame Mr. Marrier because he paid him three pounds
a week. And he very badly wanted his tea.

Then their four eyes, which for forty minutes had scarcely left the
entrance staircase, were rewarded. She came, in furs, gleaming white
kid gloves, gold chains, a gold bag, and a black velvet hat.

"I'm not late, am I?" she said, after the introduction.

"No," they both replied. And they both meant it. For she was like fine
weather. The forty minutes of waiting were forgotten, expunged
from the records of time--just as the memory of a month of rain is
obliterated by one splendid sunny day.

IV

Edward Henry enjoyed the tea, which was bad, to an extraordinary
degree. He became uplifted in the presence of Miss Elsie April;
whereas Mr. Marrier, strangely, drooped to still deeper depths of
unaccustomed inert melancholy. Edward Henry decided that she was every
bit as piquant, challenging and delectable as he had imagined her to
be on the day when he ate an artichoke at the next table to hers at
Wilkins's. She coincided exactly with his remembrance of her,
except that she was now slightly more plump. Her contours were
effulgent--there was no other word. Beautiful she was not, for she had
a turned-up nose; but what charm she radiated! Every movement and tone
enchanted Edward Henry. He was enchanted not at intervals, by a chance
gesture, but all the time--when she was serious, when she smiled,
when she fingered her tea-cup, when she pushed her furs back over her
shoulders, when she spoke of the weather, when she spoke of the
social crisis, and when she made fun, with a certain brief absence of
restraint--rather in her artichoke manner of making fun.

He thought and believed:

"This is the finest woman I ever saw!" He clearly perceived the
inferiority of other