Anthony had passed, I imagine, the longest hour and a half that he had ever passed, or will ever be likely to pass: the longest, the most agitated, the most elated, the most impatient.

Could he regard himself as accepted? Well, certainly, as the next thing to it. And, in any case, she had confessed that she cared for him.

"I never meant to let you know I did."

Oh, he heard it again and again. Again and again her eyes met his, as they had met them at that consummate moment, discovering her soul to him. Again and again he knelt before her, and kissed her hands, warm and soft, and sweet with that faint perfume which caused cataclysms in his heart.

He went home, he went in to luncheon. Somehow he must wear out the time till three o'clock.

"Come back at three o'clock—and I will tell you something."

What had she to tell him? What would he hear when he went back at three o'clock? Here was a question for hope and fear to play about.

Adrian prattled merrily over the luncheon table. I wonder how many of his words Anthony took in.

After luncheon he tramped about the park, counting the slow minutes,—kissing her hands, looking into her eyes, racking his brain with speculations as to what she might have to tell him, hoping, fearing, and counting the long slow minutes. And his tug at Susanna's doorbell coincided with the very first stroke of three from her billiard-room clock.

His throat was dry, his pulses pounded, his knees all but knocked together under him, as he followed the manservant across the hall, into her presence.