opera—in an opera of which he had written the libretto—with her photograph on a gilded easel, in the foyer, opposite his own. In a bookshop, he saw her buying a set of his collected plays. All the windows that he passed were filled with presents which the future held for her. A hansom cab was drawn up before a florist's door while he was ordering
He frowned in an attempt to concentrate his mind on some practical solution of her present difficulties; and he even bought a morning newspaper to read the "want" advertisements again. But there was no situation vacant that she could fill; and he could think of nothing except the possibility that she had thought of something herself. He went apologetically to consult her, with the paper in his pocket as an excuse.
The maid who came to the door told him that "Miss Richards" had just gone out.
He hurried back toward Broadway in the hope of overtaking her. He thought he saw her in the distance, but a nearer view showed that it was not she. He began to wander about from street to street in the idle hope of coming on her suddenly, his whole mind occupied by that absurd chance, in the insane longing of love that is a torture of impossible expectation, of a wish so strong that it seems a surety.
He spent the morning chasing this will-o'-the-wisp, alternating between a mood of pity—in which he saw her going from office to office in search of employment, alone and discouraged—and a glorious foresight of a future in which she should be as fortunate as he. Now the streets were crowded with the rich in spirit, who
