This young Vincent Harris who now walked away along Piccadilly towards Hyde Park was in a sort of waking trance. He saw nothing of the people passing by him, nor of the carriages, nor of the crowd assembled at the corner of the Row, expecting the Princess. He saw a pale and pathetic face, a dimly-outlined figure standing by a table, a chastened splendour of girlish hair, an attitude of meekness and diffidence. Once only had he caught a glimpse of the beautiful, clear, blue-grey eyes—when she came in at the door, looking startled almost; but surely a man is not stricken blind and dumb by a single glance from a girl’s wondering or enquiring eyes? Love at first sight?—he would have dismissed the suggestion with anger, as an impertinence, a profanation. It was not love at all: it was a strange kind of interest and sympathy she had inspired—compassionate almost, and yet more reverent than pitiful. There appeared to be some mysterious and subtle appeal in her very youth: why should one so young be so solitary, so timid, sheltering herself, as it were, from the common gaze? Why that touch of pathos about a mouth that was surely meant to smile?—why the lowered eyelashes?—was it because she knew she was alone in this great wilderness of strangers, in this teeming town? And he felt in his heart that this was not the place for her at all. She ought to have been away in sunny meadows golden with buttercups, with the laughter of young children echoing around her, with the wide air fragrant with the new-mown hay, with thrushes and blackbirds piping clear from amidst the hawthorn boughs. Who had imprisoned this beautiful child, and made a white slave of her, and brought her into this great roaring market of the world? And was there no one to help? But it was all a perplexity to him; even as was this indefinable concern and anxiety about one to whom he had never even spoken a word. What was there in that pensive beauty that should so strangely trouble him? She had made no appeal to him; their eyes could scarcely be said to have met, even in that brief moment; her cruel fate, the tyranny of her surroundings, her pathetic resignation, were all part and parcel of a distracted reverie, that seemed to tear his heart asunder with fears, and indignation, and vows of succour. And then—somehow—amidst this chaos and bewilderment—his one desire was that she should know he wished to be her friend—that some day—oh, some wild white day of joy!—he should be permitted to take her hand and say "Do not be so sad! You are not so much alone. Let me be by your side for a little while—until you speak—until you tell me what I can do—until you say ’Yes, I take you for my friend!’"