This sometimes helped to stimulate and soothe him; it did now, for a while--long enough to change the current of his thoughts to the girl he had hoped might have the imprudence to return for a tryst, innocent enough in itself, yet unconventional and unreasonable enough to prove attractive to them both.
Probably she wouldn't come; she had kept her fluffy skirts clear of him since Cup Day--which simply corroborated his vague estimate of her.
Had she done the contrary, his estimate would have been the same; for, unconsciously but naturally, he had prejudged her.

A girl who could capture Quarrier at full noontide, and in the face of all Manhattan, was a girl equipped for anything she dared--though she was probably too clever to dare too much; a girl to be interested in, to amuse and be amused by; a girl to be reckoned with.

His restlessness and his fever subdued by the icy water, he stood drying his hands, thinking, coolly, how close he had come to being seriously in love with this young girl, whose attitude was always a curious temptation, whose smile was a charming provocation, whose youth and beauty were to him a perpetual challenge.

He admitted to himself, calmly, that he had never seen a woman he cared as much for; that for the brief moment of his declaration he had known an utterly new emotion, which inevitably must have become the love he had so quietly declared it to be.

He had never before felt as he felt then, cared as he cared then.