think that it came from Hugh, if she pleased. He was unable not to
attend specially to his dress when he went to meet her at the Victoria
Station. He told himself that he was an ass--but still he went on being
an ass. During the whole afternoon he could do nothing but think of what
he had in hand. He was to tell Florence everything, but had Florence
known the actual state of his mind, I doubt whether she would have been
satisfied with him. The train was due at 8 p.m. He dined at the Oxford
and Cambridge Club at six, and then went to his lodgings to take one
last look at his outer man. The evening was very fine, but he went down
to the station in a cab, because he would not meet Lady Ongar in soiled
boots. He told himself again that he was an ass; and then tried to
console himself by thinking that such an occasion as this seldom
happened once to any man--could hardly happen more than once to any man.
He had hired a carriage for her, not thinking it fit that Lady Ongar
should be taken to her new home in a cab; and when he was at the
station, half an hour before the proper time, was very fidgety because
it had not come. Ten minutes before eight he might have been seen
standing at the entrance to the station looking out anxiously for the
vehicle. The man was there, of course, in time, but Harry made himself
angry because he could not get the carriage so placed that Lady Ongar
might be sure of stepping into it without leaving the platform.
Punctually to the moment the coming train announced itself by its
whistle, and Harry Clavering felt himself to be in a flutter.

The train came up along the platform, and Harry stood there expecting to
see Julia Brabazon's head projected from the first window that caught
his eye. It was of Julia Brabazon's head, and not of Lady Ongar's, that
he was thinking. But he saw no sign of her presence while the carriages
were coming to a stand-still, and the platform was covered with
passengers before he discovered her whom he was seeking. At last he