“Ask him up, then,” replied Elizabeth. She was somewhat flurried at the thought of receiving Clavering alone, but there was no help for it. She was not, however, disappointed; on the contrary she felt a deep and curious interest in seeing this man and tracing if possible that singular recollection of him, so sharp yet so impalpable and still actually inexplicable to herself. In a few minutes Serena ushered Clavering into the room. At close range he was even more attractive than at a distance. It was difficult to associate any idea of advancing age with him. Maturity was all that was indicated by his handsome, smooth–shaven face, his compact and elegant figure, his iron–gray hair. Manual labor had left but one mark upon him—his hands were rough and marred by the miner’s tools he had used. He was perfectly well dressed and entirely at his ease. He introduced himself with the natural and unaffected grace which had been his along with his sutler’s license and miner’s tools. “This, I presume, is Mrs. Darrell. I thank you very much for allowing me to wait for General Brandon’s return.” He said no word about his appointment with General Brandon being at half–past nine while then it was only a little past eight. Elizabeth invited him to sit down, and herself took a seat opposite him. The color which came into her pale face very much enhanced her looks, and Clavering thought he had never seen so interesting a woman. Her slender black figure unconsciously assumed a pose of singular grace and ease, the delicate color mounted slowly into her pale cheeks, and she was indeed worthy of any man’s notice. And as her personality had struck Clavering with great force at the very first glimpse he had had of her ten years before, so, seeing her close at hand and her attention fixed on himself, she overpowered him quickly, as the warm, sweet scent of the jessamine flower is overpowering. It was what he would have called, had he been thirty years younger, love at first sight. Clavering’s coming into the room was, like some new, strong force, making itself felt over everything. The small room seemed full of him and nothing else. He was by nature a dominant personality, and he dominated Elizabeth Darrell as strangely and suddenly as she had cast a spell over him. “My father will regret very much not being here when you came. Perhaps he misunderstood the hour of your appointment,” she said. Clavering’s white teeth shone in a smile. “Don’t trouble about that. Besides, it has given me the pleasure of seeing you.” Elizabeth was not unmindful of the fact that Clavering was a married man, with a wife across the street; and his words, which would have been merely those of courtesy in most men, could not be so interpreted, for Clavering was not a man of pretty speeches. He picked up the volume of Herodotus which lay on the table. “So you’ve been reading old Herodotus! That’s pretty heavy reading for a young woman, isn’t it?”