All the way to the Whip and Spur Club he sat buried in a reverie from which, at intervals, he started, aroused by the heavy, expectant beating of his own pulses.

But what did he expect, in Heaven's name?
Not the discovery of a woman who had never existed.

Yet his excitement and impatience grew as he watched the saddling of his horse; and when at length he rode out into the sunshine and cantered through the Park entrance, his sense of impending events and his expectancy amounted to a fever which colored his face attractively.
He saw her almost immediately.

Her horse was walking slowly in the dappled shadows of the new foliage; she, listless in her saddle, sometimes watching the throngs of riders passing, at moments turning to gaze into the woodland vistas where, over the thickets of flowering shrubbery, orioles and robins sped flashing on tinted wings from shadow to sun, from sun to shadow.

But she looked up as he drew bridle and wheeled his mount beside her; and, "Oh!" she said, flushing in recognition.
"I have missed you terribly," he said quietly.
It was dreamy weather, even for late spring: the scent of lilacs and mock-orange hung heavy as incense along the woods.