I didn’t, of course, though, gather at her first mention of his coming half that it meant to her. And she wouldn’t, I might have known, with her regard for the _nuances_, have let it baldly appear. But I discovered afterward that she had made all sorts of overtures—done her utmost to divert him to Newfair. She didn’t know him; had never set eyes on him; but her reputation, which was considerable even then, helped her a good deal. For she solicited news of him from her publishers; and she wrote Mrs. ——, whatever her name was, finally, when she learned that that was the real right source to appeal to, a no doubt handsome letter, whence came the reply Miss Haviland had quoted to me, but which, as I also afterward found out, only asked very simply, “in view of the uncertainty of Mr. Oaks’s plans,” whether or not he could, in case he had to, “spend the night there.” Well, it eventuated, not strictly in accord with her wire-pulling, that Hurrell Oaks’s route was changed so he could “run through” in the late afternoon “for a look at the college.” He was to be motoring to a place somewhere near, as it happened, and the Newfair detour would lengthen his schedule by only an hour or two. Word of it didn’t come to her directly, either; that letter was addressed to the president. But it was humbly referred to Miss Haviland in the course of things, and she took the matter—what was left of it—into her own hands. “No,” she answered, unyielding to the various suggestions that cropped up. “But I’ll tell you what I am willing to do: I will give up my own little flat. Living in London as he does, he will feel—quite at home there.” Funny though it is, looking back over it, it had also, when all was said and done—particularly when all was done—its pathetic side. For Hurrell Oaks was the one sincere passion of her life. He was religion and—and everything to her. The prospect of seeing him in the flesh, of hearing him _viva voce_, was more than she had ever piously believed could come to pass. However much she imitated him—and remember, a large following bears witness to her skill—however she failed in his beauty and poetry and thoroughbredness, she must have had a deep, a discriminating love of his genius to have taken her thus far. No wonder she couldn’t, with her precise sense of justice, _not_ be the chosen person at Newfair to receive him. But nobody dared question the justice of it, really. Wasn’t she the _raison d’être_ of his coming?—of his being anywhere at all, as some people thought? Her very demeanor was mellowed by the prospect. She set about the task of preparation with an ardor as unprofessed as it was apparent. She doffed the need of impressing any one in her zeal to get ready to impress Hurrell Oaks.