right there in Canal Street Hilary spoke of love. Not personally, only
at large; although when Anna restively said no woman should ever give
her heart where she could not give a boundless and unshakable trust, his
eyes showed a noble misery while he exclaimed:

"Oh, but there are women of whom no man can ever deserve that!" There
his manner was all at once so personal that she dared not be silent,
but fell to generalizing, with many a stammer, that a woman ought to be
very slow to give her trust if, once giving it, she would not rather die
than doubt.

"Do you believe there are such women?" he asked.

"I know there are," she said, her eyes lifted to his, but the next
instant was so panic-smitten and shamed that she ran into a lamp post.
And when he called that his fault her denial was affirmative in its
feebleness, and with the others she presently resumed the carriage and
said good-night.

"Flippantly!" thought the one left alone on the crowded sidewalk.

Yet--"It is I who am going to have the hardest of it," said the diary a
short hour after. "I've always thought that when the right one came I'd
never give in the faintest bit till I had put him to every test and task
and delay I could invent. And now I can't invent one! His face
_quenches_ doubt, and if he keeps on this way--Ah, Flora! _is_ he
anything to you? Every time he speaks my heart sees you. I see you now!
And somehow--since Charlie's mishap--more yours than his if--"

For a full minute the pen hovered over the waiting page, then gradually