So in this instance, instead of loftily adhering to his stubborn rejection of Maud Langton's offer, Vane Charteris suddenly remembers, with a sensation of relief, that all this while, a long month, indeed, the offer has lain in abeyance, waiting on his pleasure. Maud, like a skillful general, having made one artful move, is now waiting to see what the enemy will do.
Vane, like the thoughtless and innocent fly that he is, walks straight into the trap she has set. He decides to call. After all he may be forced to accept the management of her property. At this critical period of his fate, he cannot afford to be proud.
Yet it is with strange reluctance he climbs the marble steps and rings the bell. A memory of the dead seems to hold him back. The perfume of a white rose he has purchased and placed in his coat in passing a little flower shop, rises strong and sweet, thrilling him with the thought of her who has been like a rose herself.
"A rosebud set with little, willful thorns."
"I am foolish," he says to himself, disobeying the impulse to turn and descend the steps. "I must go through with it, I have to live."
He rings the bell again, and when the door is opened, sends in cards for Miss Langton, and Mrs. and Miss Baird, with whom he has some slight acquaintance.
The two latter are out. Miss Langton receives him in the elegant library where she is alone among the books, basking in the ruddy glow of firelight and gaslight. As his eyes light upon her, he recalls the English laureate's Maud:
"Maud with her exquisite face,
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace."
She is like a rare picture in her black velvet dress, with its picturesque trimmings of cream-white lace, and the pearls that clasp her throat and wrists. She rises with that slow and languid grace that Vane was wont to admire so much.