er, but he felt the
need of escaping from the suggestion of her father's presence, and taking
further thought. Perhaps he should never again reach the point that he
was aware of deflecting from now; he filled his lungs with long breaths,
which he exhaled in sighs of relief. It might have been a mistake on the
spiritual as well as the worldly side; it would certainly not have
promoted his career; it might have impeded it. These misgivings flitted
over the surface of thought that more profoundly was occupied with a
question of other things. In the time since he had seen her last it might
very well be that a young and pretty girl had met some one who had taken
her fancy; and he could not be sure that her fancy had ever been his,
even if this had not happened. He had no proof at all that she had ever
cared or could care for him except gratefully, respectfully, almost
reverentially, with that mingling of filial and maternal anxiety which
had hitherto been the warmest expression of her regard. He tried to
reason it out, and could not. He suddenly found himself bitterly
disappointed that he had missed seeing her, for if they had met, he would
have known by this time what to think, what to hope. He felt old--he felt
fully thirty-six years old--as he passed his hand over his crown, whose
gossamer growth opposed so little resistance to his touch. He had begun
to lose his hair early, but till then he had not much regretted his
baldness. He entered into a little question of their comparative ages,
which led him to the conclusion that Cynthia must now be about
twenty-five.

Almost at the same moment he saw her coming up the walk toward him from
far down the avenue. For a reason, or rather a motive, of his own he
pretended to himself that it was not she, but he knew instantly that it
was, and he put on his hat. He could see that she did not know him, and
it was a pretty thing to witness the recognition dawn on her. When it had
its full effect, he was aware of a flutter, a pause in her whole figure
before she came on toward him, and he hurried his steps for the charm of
her beautiful blushing face.

It was the spiritual effect of figure and face that he had carried in his
thought ever since he had arrived at that one-sided intimacy through his
study of her for the picture he had just seen. He had often had to ask
himself whether he had really perceived or only imagined the character he
had translated into it; but here, for the moment