There was nothing else to be delighted about. He had divined pretty clearly that Miss Tancred's society would be the only entertainment offered to him during his stay, and the most outrageous flirtation would be justifiable in the circumstances; he had seen himself driven to it in sheer desperation and self-defense; he had longed hopelessly, inexpressibly, for the return of the absconding deity; he had looked on Miss Tancred as his hope, his angel, his deliverer. That she had not been at home to receive him seemed a little odd, but on second thoughts he had been glad of it. He would have distrusted any advances on her part as arguing a certain poverty of personal resource. Presumably Miss Tancred could afford a little indifference, a touch of divine disdain. And if indeed she had used absence as an art to stimulate his devotion, she was to be congratulated on her success. His dream had been nourished on this ambrosial uncertainty. Upstairs in his bedroom mere emotional belief in Miss Tancred had risen to rational conviction. The first aspect of the guest-chamber had inspired him with a joyous credulity. It wooed him with its large and welcoming light, its four walls were golden white and warm, and in all its details he had found unmistakable evidences of design. There was an overruling coquetry in the decorative effects, in the minute little arrangements for his comfort. A finer hand than any housemaid's must have heaped that blue china bowl with roses, laid out that writing-table, and chosen the books in the shelf beside the bed. A woman is known by her books as by her acquaintance, and he had judged of the mind of this maiden, turning over the pages with a thrill of sensuous curiosity. This charming Providence had fitted his mood to perfection with these little classics of the hour, by authors too graceful and urbane to bore a poor mortal with their immortality. Adorable Miss Tancred! He was in love with her before sight, at half-sight. For at the sound of a punctual gong he had hurried out on to the stairs, a door had opened on some unseen landing, he had heard a woman's step on the flight below; he had listened, he had watched, and as he caught the turn of her head, the rustle and gleam of her gown, some divine and cloudy color, silver or lavender or airy blue, he had been radiantly certain that his vision had passed before him. Down there somewhere it was making itself incarnate in the unknown. He felt already its reviving presence, the mysterious aura of its womanhood. Hitherto his imagination had been guided by a profound sense of the justice that is in things. Destiny who had brought him to this deceitful place owed him compensation for the fraud, and an apology in person was really no more than his due. What if Miss Tancred were she, the supremely feminine, Destiny herself? Under the echoing gallery the drawing-room had opened and closed upon her, and he had followed, his nerves tingling with the familiar prophetic thrill.