He was no laggard.  The bell on the church near by was still singing from the last stroke when he knocked, flung open the door, and stood for a moment staring at her.  Not that she had been shabby when he had wished to marry her at noon:  no self-respecting woman is ever shabby; not that her present costume had any of the elements of overdress; far from it.  Being a woman, she had her thrill of triumph at his exclamation.  Diana had no need, perhaps, of a French dressmaker, but it is an open question whether she would have scorned them.  Honora stood motionless, but her smile for him was like the first quivering shaft of day.  He opened a box, and with a strange mixture of impetuosity and reverence came forward.  And she saw that he held in his hand a string of great, glistening pearls.

“They were my mother’s,” he said.  “I have had them restrung—­for you.”

“Oh, Hugh!” she cried.  She could find no words to express the tremor within.  And she stood passively, her eyes half closed, while he clasped the string around the lace collar that pressed the slender column of her neck and kissed her.

Even the humble beings who work in hotels are responsive to unusual disturbances in the ether.  At the Barnstable, a gala note prevailed:  bell boys, porters, clerk, and cashier, proud of their sudden wisdom, were wreathed in smiles.  A new automobile, in Chiltern’s colours, with his crest on the panel, was panting beside the curb.

“I meant to have had it this morning,” he apologized as he handed her in, “but it wasn’t ready in time.”

Honora heard him, and said something in reply.  She tried in vain to rouse herself from the lethargy into which she had fallen, to cast off the spell.  Up Fifth Avenue they sped, past meaningless houses, to the Park.  The crystal air of evening was suffused with the level evening light; and as they wound in and out under the spreading trees she caught glimpses across the shrubbery of the deepening blue of waters.  Pools of mystery were her eyes.

The upper West Side is a definite place on the map, and full, undoubtedly, of palpitating human joys and sorrows.  So far as Honora was concerned, it might have been Bagdad.  The automobile had stopped before a residence, and she found herself mounting the steps at Chiltern’s side.  A Swedish maid opened the door.

“Is Mr. White at home?” Chiltern asked.

It seemed that “the Reverend Mr. White” was.  He appeared, a portly gentleman with frock coat and lawn tie who resembled the man in the moon.  His head, like polished ivory, increased the beaming effect of his welcome, and the hand that pressed Honora’s was large and soft and warm.  But dreams are queer things, in which no events surprise us.