a mirage of the skies. And he heard himself whispering words of
incredible fondness to her, saw her listening with wonder in her eyes.

At still other moments, he was ready to renounce every hope, if, by
doing so, he could add jot or tittle to her happiness.

The further he spun himself into his dreams, however, and the better
he learnt to know her in imagination, the harder it grew to take the
first step towards realising his wishes. In those few, brief days,
when he hugged her name to him as a talisman, he waited cheerfully for
something to happen, something unusual, that would bring him to her
notice--a dropped handkerchief, a seat vacated for her at a concert,
even a timely accident. But as day after day went by, in eventless
monotony, he began to cast about him for human aid. From Dove, his
daily companion, Dove of the outstretched paws of continual help, he
now shrank away. Miss Martin was not to be spoken to except in Dove's
company. There was only one person who could assist him, if she would,
and that was Madeleine Wade. He called to mind the hearty invitation
she had given him, and reproached himself for not having taken
advantage of it.

One afternoon, towards six o'clock, he rang the bell of her lodgings
in the MOZARTSTRASSE. This was a new street, the first blocks of which
gave directly on the Gewandhaus square; but, at the further
end, where she lived, a phalanx of redbrick and stucco fronts looked
primly across at a similar line. In the third storey of one of these
houses, Madeleine Wade had a single, large room, the furniture of
which was so skilfully contrived, that, by day, all traces of the
room's double calling were obliterated.