Her fingers fluttered over her hair; she swayed and turned before the glass, bringing the lines of her neck into critical inspection. There was the turn of youth there yet, it comforted her to see, and some degree of comeliness. He would come soon, and she must be at her best, to show him that she believed in him, and give him to understand that she was celebrating his triumph over the contrary forces which he had whipped like a man. Faith, thought she, as she sat by the window and looked down upon the crowd which still hung about the land-office, was a sustaining food. Without it the business of all the world would cease. She had found need to draw heavily upon it in her years, which she passed in fleeting review as she looked pensively upon the crowd, which seemed floundering aimlessly in the sun. All at once the crowd seemed to resolve into one personality, or to become but the incidental background for one man; a tall man with a slight stoop, whose heavy eyebrows met above his nose like two black caterpillars which had clinched in a combat to contest the passage. Here and there he moved as if seeking somebody, familiarly greeted, familiarly returning the salutations. That morning she had seen him at the head of the line of men waiting to file on land, close beside Peterson, who believed himself to be Number One. She had wondered then what his interest might be, and it was largely due to a desire to avoid being seen by him that she had hurried away. Now he turned as if her thoughts had burned upon his back like a sunglass, looked directly toward her window, lifted his hat, and smiled. As if his quest had come to an end at the sight of her, he pushed across the street and came toward the hotel. She left the window, closing it hurriedly, a shadow of fear in her face, her hand pressed to her bosom, as if that meeting of eyes had broken the lethargy of some old pain. She waited, standing in the center of the room, as if for a summons which she dreaded to hear. The hotel at Meander had not at that day come to such modern contrivances as telephones and baths. If a patron wanted to talk out on the one wire that connected Meander with the world and the railroad, he had to go to the stage-office; if he wanted a bath he must make a trip to the steam laundry, where they maintained tubs for that purpose. But these slight inconveniences were not all on one side of the house. For if a message came to the office for a guest in his room, there was nothing for the clerk to do but trot up with it. And so it came that when Agnes opened her door to the summons, her bearing had no touch of fear or timidity. In the hall she faced the panting clerk, who had leaped up the stairs and was in a hurry to leap down again. "Mr. Jerry Boyle asks if he may have the pleasure of seeing you in the parlor, Miss Horton," said the clerk.