And he was glad to know definitely what he had to fear from her, even though the definition was so inclusive. He determined to loosen, slowly and gently, those tendrils of sentiment by which she clung to him, which were so enfeebling her self-support. But he saw that he had little to hope for save from time and the natural infidelity of her sex. IV Time, unfortunately, seemed arrayed against him, for it was in April of the same year that he met Miss Lilias Anstruther. Their meeting summed up the possibilities of love at sight. He loved her as she passed him on the stairs, and she him, as she afterwards confided, while he was being led to her for introduction, an occasion which has--for an Englishman, at any rate--small opportunities of display. But love at sight is such a miracle to the seer that he never imagines its duplication. Terence saw nothing on Miss Anstruther's features but the attention an intelligent woman might show to any man with a name in the making. She imagined, in the stern set of his, boredom at having to make himself agreeable to a merely pretty girl. There was, in his mind, no doubt, enough to complicate a glance of admiration, since he saw between him and her the jealous presence of another woman. What that presence meant to him, now, he realized with despair. He had endured in silence its unscrupulous intrigues; he had schooled himself to meet the most preposterous of its requirements. But then he stood alone; the worst that could be done him was the most that he need fear. He could live secure since only he could suffer. Now! He lost his breath as he thought of it. He saw Lilias several times that month. He did not notice that it seemed easy to see her. That she had a hand in that facility would have been the last thing to strike him. Love had come to him in the extravagant splendours it only wears for those who find it late, with the eyes still unsoiled through which youth sought it. For, to the boy, love is only a white angel, but the man sees it iridescent with the colours of his accumulated years of hope. It was not surprising that Terence, who had never even imagined himself in love before, and whose every instinct forbade a paltering with its substitute, should have been overwhelmed by this putting forth of an enchantment he had long ceased to expect. He kept his head from early habit, which made the danger of losing it in Miss Anstruther's presence almost a delight, and he banished the acknowledgment of his happiness from every part of him but his eyes. There, however, in the glow of an accustomed kindliness it could escape recognition, and there too it was often absorbed in a stern anxiety when he faced the risks of its discovery by the other woman. From her he kept, with a man's timorous diplomacy, every echo of the girl's name, until he learnt they were acquainted. Then he had to endure an inquest on his concealment, and the woman's suspicions were fertilized by his replies.