The advantage from being in the act of putting on gloves began at the very outset. It helped to save her from deciding a mode of salutation. She did not salute him at all. It made the meeting a continuation, without break, of their previous meeting. "How do you like my new dress?" she asked, as she drew the long part of her glove up her round, white arm. "Beautiful," he stammered. From the hazel eyes shot a shy-bold glance straight into his; it was as if those slim, taper fingers of hers had twanged the strings of the lyre of his nerves. "You despise all this sort of trumpery, don't you?" "Sometimes a man says things he don't mean," he found tongue to utter. "I understand," said she sympathetically, and he knew she meant his note. But he was too overwhelmed by his surroundings, by her envelope of aristocracy, too fascinated by her physical charm, too flattered by being on such terms with such a personage, to venture to set her right. Also, she gave him little chance; for in almost the same breath she went on: "I've been in such moods!--since yesterday afternoon--like the devils in Milton, isn't it?--that are swept from lands of ice to lands of fire?--or is it in Dante? I never can remember. We must go straight off, for I'm late. You can come, too--it's only a little meeting about some charity or other. All rich people, of course--except poor me. I'm sure I don't know why they asked me. I can give little besides advice. How handsome you are to-day, Joshua!" It was the first time she had called him by his first name. She repeated it--"Joshua--Joshua"--as when one hits upon some particularly sweet and penetrating chord at the piano, and strikes it again, and yet again. They were in the carriage, being whirled toward the great palace of Mrs. Whitson, the latest and grandest of plutocratic monuments that have arisen upon the ruins of the old, old-fashioned American Washington. And she talked incessantly--a limpid, sparkling, joyous strain. And either her hand sought his or his hers; at any rate, he found himself holding her hand. They were almost there before he contrived to say, very falteringly: "You got my note?" She laughed gayly. "Oh, yes--and your own answer to it, Joshua--my love"--the "my love" in a much lower, softer tone, with suggestion of sudden tears trembling to fall. "But I meant it," he said, though in tones little like any he was used to hearing from his own lips. But he would not dare look himself in the face again if he did not make at least a wriggle before surrendering. "We mean many things in as many moods," said she. "I knew it was only a mood. I knew you'd come. I've such a sense of implicit reliance on you. You are to me like the burr that shields the nut from all harm. How secure and cozy and happy the nut must feel in its burr. As I've walked through the woods in the autumn I've often thought of that, and how, if I ever married--"