The rain was coming down in torrents now, and every one was scurrying for shelter. He looked back from the bend, and could still make out Antonia riding leisurely, her face upturned, and revelling in the shower. Why had n't she either cut him altogether or taken the sweets the gods had sent? It seemed wicked to have wasted such a chance, and, ploughing back to Hyde Park Corner, he turned his head to see if by any chance she had relented. His irritation was soon gone, but his longing stayed. Was ever anything so beautiful as she had looked with her face turned to the rain? She seemed to love the rain. It suited her--suited her ever so much better than the sunshine of the South. Yes, she was very English! Puzzling and fretting, he reached his rooms. Ferrand had not arrived, in fact did not turn up that day. His non-appearance afforded Shelton another proof of the delicacy that went hand in hand with the young vagrant's cynicism. In the afternoon he received a note. . . . You see, Dick [he read], I ought to have cut you; but I felt too crazy--everything seems so jolly at home, even this stuffy old London. Of course, I wanted to talk to you badly--there are heaps of things one can't say by letter--but I should have been sorry afterwards. I told mother. She said I was quite right, but I don't think she took it in. Don't you feel that the only thing that really matters is to have an ideal, and to keep it so safe that you can always look forward and feel that you have been--I can't exactly express my meaning. Shelton lit a cigarette and frowned. It seemed to him queer that she should set more store by an “ideal” than by the fact that they had met for the first and only time in many weeks. “I suppose she 's right,” he thought--“I suppose she 's right. I ought not to have tried to speak to her!” As a matter of fact, he did not at all feel that she was right. CHAPTER XIII AN “AT HOME” On Tuesday morning he wandered off to Paddington, hoping for a chance view of her on her way down to Holm Oaks; but the sense of the ridiculous, on which he had been nurtured, was strong enough to keep him from actually entering the station and lurking about until she came. With a pang of disappointment he retraced his steps from Praed Street to the Park, and once there tried no further to waylay her. He paid a round of calls in the afternoon, mostly on her relations; and, seeking out Aunt Charlotte, he dolorously related his encounter in the Row. But she found it “rather nice,” and on his pressing her with his views, she murmured that it was “quite romantic, don't you know.” “Still, it's very hard,” said Shelton; and he went away disconsolate.