He was very busy the next day. When he left the office a carriage full of young girls passed him. Some of them nodded; he was not quite sure whether she did or not. Now was his opportunity.
The day had been rather raw, with a fitful sunshine, but now it was clouding over. He walked briskly, and held his head erect, although he felt rather cowardly at heart. Why should he not put his fate to the touch, like a man, or dismiss her from his mind? He sauntered up the stoop and touched the knocker lightly—so lightly, indeed, that Julius, amid the clatter of Dinah's pots and pans, did not hear it.
The carriage stopped. It was rather dusky now, and a tree hid the figure at the door until Jaqueline was coming up the steps. His heart beat furiously. He turned, and they faced each other.
Her hat, with the great bow on the top, was tied under her chin with rose-colored ribbons. A satin collar edged with swan's down stood up around her throat and almost touched the pink cheeks. The great soft, dark eyes glanced out in surprise—they could flame in anger too, he knew that.
He had thought more than once how gradually he would lead up to that old time, and learn if she still loved him. And she had resolved upon a becoming humility on his part. He should admit that he had misjudged her, that he had been selfish, arbitrary, suspicious, jealous, and—oh, how many faults she had counted upon her white fingers!
"Jaqueline," he said almost under his breath—"Jaqueline!"—and it seemed as if his voice had never been so sweet, a fragrant shower falling on a long-parched heart. He was trying to find her hand; did it come out of the great muff quite as broad as her slim figure, all soft and warm, to be pressed to his lips?
"Are you very angry still?" she inquired in the dearest, most beseeching tone.
"Angry?" He had forgotten all about it. He had been fatuous, senseless, to think of such a thing!
"Because—" in a fascinating cadence of pardon.
"I have not had a happy moment." His voice was husky with emotion, with the love that he had told himself a hundred times was dead, and a hundred times had disbelieved.