infatuated head that he was performing the veriest schoolboy
trick in rushing to a steamship pier in the hope of catching a
final, and at best, unsatisfactory glimpse of a young woman who
had appealed to his sensitive admiration. A love-sick boy could
be excused for such a display of imbecility, but a man--a man of
the world'. Never!

"The idea of chasing down to the water's edge to see that girl is
enough to make you ashamed of yourself for life, Grenfall Lorry,"
he apostrophized. "It's worse than any lovesick fool ever
dreamed of doing. I am blushing, I'll be bound. The idiocy, the
rank idiocy of the thing! And suppose she should see me staring
at her out there on the pier? What would she think of me? I'll
not go another foot! I won't be a fool!"

He was excited and self-conscious and thoroughly ashamed of the
trip into which his impetuous adoration had driven him. Just as
he was tugging at the door in the effort to open it that he might
order the driver to take him back to the hotel, a sly tempter
whispered something in his ear; his fancy was caught, and he
listened:

"Why not go down to the pier and look over the passenger list,
just to see if she has been booked safely? That would be
perfectly proper and sensible, and besides it will be a
satisfaction to know that she gets off all right. Certainly!
There's nothing foolish in that . . . . Especially as I am right
on the way there . . . . And as I have come so far . . . there's
no sense in going back without seeing whether she has secured
passage . . . . I can find out in a minute and then go home.