His love was quite unmixed with vanity, for Madeline had never given him any real reason to think that she loved him, and, therefore, the risk of an additional snub or two counted for nothing to deter him.

The very next day he left the shop in the afternoon and called on her.

Her rather constrained and guarded manner was as if she thought he had come to call her to account, and was prepared for him.

He, on the contrary, tried to look as affable and well satisfied as if he were the most prosperous of lovers.

When he asked her if she would go out driving with him that afternoon, she was evidently taken quite off her guard.