So far his task had been easy enough. But at the fateful moment, face to face with his divinity, and doubtless for the first time perceiving that no relenting glance softened the faultless contours of her carven features, that no spark of warmth glinted in her big, blue eyes,--eyes that, on the contrary, were brimful of scornful laughter,--his indomitable spirit failed him utterly, was crushed, for once, at least, and he stood gaping at her, to everyone's surprise, more like a country yokel than the man-of-the-world that he undoubtedly was. For the briefest of intervals he remained thus. And then, apparently pulling himself together, he suddenly wheeled round on his heel, and shouldering his way through the press,--heedless alike of a friendly hail, which came in an unmistakably English accent from someone back in the crowd, and of the protesting looks, if not words, of the people he jostled,--he left an ostentatiously, almost vulgarly, ornate limousine to slam its door and move rapidly away with its fair occupant and her admirers. Into Central Park West the young man turned and walked north. Despite a heavy fur overcoat, his gait was extraordinarily fast, and his face appeared white, almost ghastly, in the thin, yellow fog that was pushing its way under his eyelids, into the penetralia of nose and ears, and depositing superfluous matter on his lungs, larynx, and reckless expanse of linen. A few blocks above the theatre he came to a small apartment-hotel, mounted at a run to the first floor, and quickly entering the sitting-room of the suite, he carelessly tossed his irreproachable high hat on to a lounge. Then he went over to a window and stood gazing out at the sea of fog before drawing the curtain against the gamboge of the December evening. And his countenance was at once savage and inexpressibly sad. This savageness was habitual, the resultant of bold features: a straight nose which made a sharp angle with the steep brow, bushy eyebrows and a wiry, brush-backed moustache that sprouted aggressively from his upper lip. Strictly speaking it was not a handsome face, though, perhaps, a striking one. Nor in other respects was there anything remarkable about George Trafford--"Nervy" Trafford they had called him at Harvard, and the appellation had always clung to him. As to occupation he had none. Inheriting a modest fortune at an early age, his life had differed little from that of the majority of young Americans in like circumstances, if we except the fact that--before he took up the difficult task of killing time--he had added an Oxford degree to that of Harvard.