At a few minutes before the popular dining hour, Aaron Rodd, having selected a table, ordered, in consultation with the chief maître d'hôtel, a small dinner, and possessed himself of a theatre guide, sat in the reception lounge of the Carlton Grill-room, awaiting the arrival of Henriette. There was a mirror exactly opposite to him, and as he sipped his cocktail he caught a glimpse of his own face. He set down his glass, momentarily startled. Somehow, it seemed to him like being brought face to face with the ghost of his youth. He rose to his feet and lounged over towards the mirror on the pretext of examining some illustrated papers. In the intervals of glancing at them, he looked furtively at his own reflection, trying to account for the change he saw there. At the poet's earnest solicitation he had visited a first-class tailor, had bought the right shape of collar, had learnt to tie his evening bow with the proper twist. A personally conducted visit to a fashionable hairdresser had followed, and his fine black hair, no longer ragged and unkempt, was brushed back from a face which seemed, even to its owner, to have changed in some marvellous way during the last few months. He was, without a doubt, younger. There was a new expression about his lips, from which the hardness seemed to have gone, and, curiously enough, he was conscious that notwithstanding all his anxieties, never more poignant than at this particular moment, life had taken a sudden and sympathetic turn with him. Since the coming of Harvey Grimm, he had at last been lifted up from that weary rut of depression and ill-being; but since the coming of Henriette, he had been transported bodily into the world where human beings live, where the flowers have a different perfume, and the sun shines always, even if sometimes from behind the clouds.
"But you, then, also are vain!" a rather surprised, very amused voice exclaimed almost in his ears. "Why, you remind me of Mr. Cresswell, standing there preening yourself before the mirror!"
For a moment he felt almost embarrassed. Then he smiled as he bent over Henriette's fingers.
"I was wondering," he confessed, "what could have brought so great a change into my life—and then you came."
Her eyes softened as she looked at him. Her lips parted. She studied him for a moment apprisingly.
"You are changed, you know," she decided. "You look younger. You seem, somehow, to have moved from one world into another. You were looking very melancholy that first day when we met in the Gardens. I do not think that adventures have disagreed with you."
"If one could only stop them now!" he exclaimed eagerly.
She laid her finger upon her lip. The maître d'hôtel stood bowing before them.
"Madame will come this way?"
Henriette approved of the table, approved of the dinner, approved of her companion. As for Aaron Rodd, the shadows which sometimes terrified him seemed to have passed far away into the background. He was deaf and dumb to the voices and glances of their neighbours, attracted by his companion's unanalysable elegance, her aristocratic little face with its flawless complexion, her little air—foreign, perhaps, but all the more attractive—of quaint, individual distinction. She wore no ornaments except the pearls which hung from her neck. Her hair, to his untutored eyes, might have been arranged with her own fingers. Her gown, as always, was black, this time of chiffon, and it was not for him to know that its simplicity represented the last word in fashion. He simply found her adorable, and dinner was almost concluded before she uttered a little cry.