The minutes passed. Nora, like every other woman, was unpunctual. The notion did not occur to me at the time, but I am fairly sure now that the girl’s dilatoriness, adding a slight pique to the somewhat clandestine nature of the appointment, helped to chase from my mind the shadows of the previous night’s troubling experiences. She came at last. A flower-garden hat, a veil, a fine lace dress and a pink parasol, were effective disguises after the candor of evening attire. I did not recognize this frilly young lady until she spoke to me. “So you really are here?” she cried, with a little laugh, and looking, I fancied, a trifle embarrassed. “Did you not expect me?” I countered. “Oh, one never can tell. Things which look serious under the electric light are apt to assume less dragon-like proportions on such an afternoon as this, and in the Park, of all places.” “I am glad you think so. Some such thought has winged its way to me, too.” Rather a neat allusion to the object of our meeting, don’t you think?--a quiet reference to the sixth sense, without dragging it in by the scalp, so to speak--but Miss Cazenove shied off the topic. “I chanced to remember that you said you would be here about this time,” she said lamely. “I fear I bored you with my silly confidences last night, even more than poor Mr. M---- with his poems.” _Que diable!_ Was this the fiery beauty who regaled me at midnight with her tantrums because her lover was moistening with imaginary kisses the lips, the eyes, the very hair of a rival? “Where a nice young woman is concerned I have neither memory nor conscience,” said I, gaily. “If you keep the one unburthened I shall not trouble the other,” she retorted. And then, with an airy dismissing of the subject, she asked: “Which way are you going?” Will you believe it, I escorted her across the Park, by the diagonal path to Albert Gate, where she parted from me on some shopping pretext, without another word being spoken which referred in any way to Karl or her somewhat strenuous _fiançailles_! I was puzzled, annoyed, elaborately sarcastic with myself, for how was I to know that this youthful goddess’ veins were filled with a new ichor, her passions soothed and her doubts dispelled by the wonder-working force which her own heart-broken appeal for help had set loose? A thrice fortunate chance kept Karl and me apart in that hour. Nothing could have restrained me from pooh-poohing the elaborate make-believe in which he and the two girls were living. Had it been so, I tremble now to picture the probable outcome. I can see Karl waving me aside in his quiet way, disdaining to reclaim the pervert by compulsion, and refusing me any further trust. I believe the sequel would have killed me with grief.