The McDougle Street part had vanished; what if the Boris too were a myth?
But as he sprang up the steps at the apartment house St.George knew better.
The night before her hand had lain in his for an infinitesimal time, and she had said "Until to-morrow." On sending his name to Mrs.Hastings he was immediately bidden to her apartment.

He found the drawing-room in confusion--the furniture covered with linen, the bric-a-brac gone, and three steamer trunks strapped and standing outside the door.

All of which mattered to him less than nothing, for Olivia was there alone.
She came down the dismantled room to meet him, smiling a little and very pale but, St.George thought, even more beautiful than she had been the day before.

She was dressed for walking and had on a sober little hat, and straightway St.George secretly wondered how he could ever have approved of anything so flagrant as a Gainsborough.
She lifted her veil as they sat down, and St.George liked that.

To complete his capitulation she turned to a little table set before the bowing flames of juniper branches in the grate.
"This is breakfast," she told him; "won't you have a cup of tea and a muffin?
Aunt Medora will be back presently from the chemist's." For the first time St.George blessed Mrs.Hastings.
"You are really leaving to-day, Miss Holland ?" he asked, noting the little ringless hand that gave him two lumps.
"Really leaving," she assented, "at noon to-day.