His neighbor was buttoning her gloves.
“I’m a beast to stand here staring,” he murmured, as she moved leisurely towards her window, apparently unconscious of him. “It’s a shame,” he added, “that we don’t know each other! I’m going to the Park; I wish you were—I want you to go—because it would do you good! You must go!”
Her left glove was now buttoned; the right gave her some difficulty, which she started to overcome with a hair-pin.
“If mental persuasion can do it, you and I are going to meet under the wistaria arbor in the Park,” he said, with emphasis.
To concentrate his thoughts he stood rigid, thinking as hard as a young man can think with a distractingly pretty girl fastening her glove opposite; and the effort produced a deep crease between his eyebrows.
“You—are—going—to—the—wistaria—arbor—in—the Park!” he repeated, solemnly.
She turned as though she had heard, and looked straight at him. Her face was bright with color; never had he seen such fresh beauty in a human face.
Her eyes wandered from him upward to the serene blue sky; then she stepped back, glanced into the mirror, touched her hair with the tips of her gloved fingers, and walked away, disappearing into the gloom of the room.
An astonishing sense of loneliness came over him—a perfectly unreasonable feeling, because every day for months he had seen her disappear from the window, always viewing the phenomenon with disinterested equanimity.
“Now I don’t for a moment suppose she’s going to the wistaria arbor,” he said, mournfully, walking towards his door.