It was such an extraordinary thing, now that Richard had time to think of it, that Dorothy should love him! And more amazing that she should press her cheek to his and tell him of it! Oh, he could still feel that round, warm, velvet cheek against his own! It was such joy to remember, too, that it was merely the beginning of an eternity of those soft endearments! it remade the world; and all things, even those most week-a-day and commonplace, came upon him in colors so new and strange and rich and sweet--touched as they were with this transforming light of Dorothy's love! Richard plowed through the winter evening in a most ridiculous frame of mind, midway between transports and imbecility.
"You will see me to-morrow ?" pleaded Dorothy, as he came away.
Whereat Richard averred doughtily that he should.
Neither of the two having the practical wit to settle hour or place, Bess, who the moment before had returned to them from Mr.Fopling with intelligence coolly unimpaired, said: "Four o'clock, then; and, if I may make a suggestion, you might better meet here." It was among the miracles how the high beatitude consequent upon that wonderful event of Dorothy's love put Richard in a vaguely belligerent mood.

It was an amiable ferocity at that, and showed in nothing more dire than just an eye of overt challenge to all the world.

Also, he dilated and swelled in sheer masculine pride of himself, and no longer walked the streets, but stalked.

Naturalists will not be surprised by these revelations, having observed kindred phenomena in the males among other species of animals.
In this lofty spirit, and by a fashion of instinct, Richard headed for the club.

At the club, by the best of fortune, as he would have said in his then temper, he located Storri; and thereupon he bent upon said patrician such an iron stare of confident insolence that the object of it was appreciably worried, turning white, then red, then white, and in the finish leaving the room, unable to sustain himself in the face of so much triumph and truculence.
In the midst of this splendor of the soul, and just as Richard had begun to feel a catholic pity for all mankind to think not one beyond himself was loved by Dorothy, a message was thrust between his fingers.