wling along toward the busy
waterway. Directly he sat bolt upright, rigid and startled to find
himself more awakened to the realization of his absurd action. Again it
entered his infatuated head that he was performing the veriest schoolboy
trick in rushing to a steamship pier in the hope of catching a final,
and at best, unsatisfactory glimpse of a young woman who had appealed
to his sensitive admiration. A love-sick boy could be excused for such a
display of imbecility, but a man--a man of the world'. Never!

"The idea of chasing down to the water's edge to see that girl is
enough to make you ashamed of yourself for life, Grenfall Lorry," he
apostrophized. "It's worse than any lovesick fool ever dreamed of doing.
I am blushing, I'll be bound. The idiocy, the rank idiocy of the thing!
And suppose she should see me staring at her out there on the pier? What
would she think of me? I'll not go another foot! I won't be a fool!"

He was excited and self-conscious and thoroughly ashamed of the trip
into which his impetuous adoration had driven him. Just as he was
tugging at the door in the effort to open it that he might order the
driver to take him back to the hotel, a sly tempter whispered something
in his ear; his fancy was caught, and he listened:

"Why not go down to the pier and look over the passenger list, just to
see if she has been booked safely? That would be perfectly proper and
sensible, and besides it will be a satisfaction to know that she gets
off all right. Certainly! There's nothing foolish in that.... Especially
as I am right on the way there.... And as I have come so far...
there's no sense in going back without seeing whether she has secured
passage.... I can find out in a minute and then go home. There won't be
anything wrong in that. And then I may have a glimpse of her before the
ship leaves the pier. She must not see me, of course. Never! She'd laugh
at me! How I'd hate to see her laughing at me!" Then, sinking back again
with a smile of justification on his face, he muttered: "We won't
turn back; we'll go right ahead. We'll be a kind of a fool, but not so
foolish as to allow her to see us and recognize us as one."

Before long they arrived at the wharf, and he hurried to the office near
by. The clerk permitted him to look over the list. First he ran through
the first-class passengers, and was surprised to find that there was
no such name as Guggenslocker in the list. Then he went over the second
c