He saw men and women coming and going. He could not tell whether she was among them or whether the man who had entered the library--who probably was the man that put out the light--was among the crowd. But the sleuths and the bell-boy and the coat-girl watched him. What doubt could remain? In their minds there was none. Tom abandoned the chase. The key to the mystery eluded him, as usual. He was not clever enough to catch the mystery-manipulator in the act, as it were. He looked at the paper. It was an envelope. On it was written in a woman's hand: _For T. M._ He opened the envelope and pulled out a sheet of the hotel note-paper, on which he read, in the same handwriting: _Too late!_ He walked to the desk and spoke to the room clerk. “I must--” he began, but stopped. “Yes, sir, Mr. Merriwether!” The clerk used the voice and manner of a man saying nice things to a child in order to propitiate its mother. “About Room 77 on the seventh floor,” said Tom. “We can give it to you now, if you wish. Yes, sir.” “What? Has she--Is it vacant?” “Given up this very minute. If you'll wait until we send up and see whether it is ready to be occupied, I'll--” “I'll take it; but I'd like to go up at once.” He wished to see whether there was any clue left by the previous occupants. “Certainly. Front!” Tom followed the bell-boy. The room was empty and undisturbed. He thought he smelled sweet peas and sat down in an arm-chair to think; but the odor, which made her recognizable in his dreams of her, prevented him from thinking as you would expect a healthy young man to think. There was no sharpness of outline in the visions of her seen through the mist of dreams and longings. He knew there was a girl somewhere whom he would marry. Indeed, he often had wondered what his wife would be like. Every man, when he endeavors to look ahead, thinks that some day he shall have a wife--the mother of his children--the woman whose mere existence will influence his life more than anything else in the world; whose love will make him a different man; whose necessities will give to him an utterly different point of view. Our lives depend on our point of view; and Tom knew that his point of view would be utterly changed by this girl he had never seen. Would she be the girl the man in 777 Fifth Avenue said she would be? Was she the mysterious person with whom, of course, he was not in love, but with whom he might fall in love--adventuress or not? His love of love had not yet changed into love of somebody; but he was keen to enter into a definite love-affair with a concrete being, and he rather suspected that this affair was being stage-managed for his benefit.