Florian rose, and closed the door behind the poet softly. He had played his cards well, remarkably well, that evening. If he wanted to drive Will into proposing to Linnet, he had gone the right way to effect his object. “And I,” he thought to himself with a contented smile, “will stand a fair chance with Rue, without fear of a rival, when once he’s gone off and got well married to his cow-girl. It’ll be interesting to ask them to a nice little dinner, from their Surrey side garret, at our snug small den in Park Lane or South Kensington. Park Lane’s the most fashionable, but South Kensington’s the pleasantest: In Cromwell Road did Florian Wood, A stately pleasure dome decree. Such a palace of art as it will be, too! I can see it now, in my mind’s eye, Horatio!—Botticellis, Della Robbias, Elzevirs, Stradivariuses! William Morris on the floor! Lewis Day on the ceiling! It rises like an exhalation, all beautiful to behold! Such things might I do—with Rue’s seven hundred thousand!” CHAPTER XXI FORTUNE’S WHEEL It was with no little trepidation that Will mounted the Küchelberg on the morning after his return to Meran from the Dolomites. Would Linnet be there, he wondered, or would he somehow miss her? He didn’t know why, but a certain vague foreboding of possible evil possessed his soul. He was dimly conscious to himself of danger ahead. He couldn’t feel reassured till he stood once more face to face with Linnet. When he arrived at the appointed place, however, by the Station of the Cross which represented the Comforting of the Daughters of Jerusalem, a cold shudder of alarm came over him suddenly. No Linnet there! Not a sign of her to be seen! And hitherto she had always kept her tryst before him. He took out his watch and looked. Ha, a moment’s respite! In his eagerness, he had arrived five minutes early. But Linnet was usually, even so, five minutes ahead of him. He couldn’t make it out; this was ominous, very! With heart standing still, he waited a quarter of an hour—half-an-hour—three-quarters. And still no Linnet came!—And still he watched eagerly. He paced up and down, looking again and again at his watch with impatience. Could she have mistaken the place? Yet he told her plain enough! On the bare chance of some error, he would try the other stations. He went to them all, one by one, from the Crown of Thorns to the Calvary. The same luck still! No Linnet at any of them! Then he mounted the great boss of ice-worn rock with the bench on its top, that commands far and wide the whole expanse of the Küchelberg. Gazing down on every side upon the long, low hog’s back, he saw nobody all around save the women in the fields, watching their cows at pasture, and the men with the carts urging overtasked oxen to drag too heavy a load up the cobble-paved hill-track.