"It is
simply to bid her adieu," he said to himself, "for I shall hardly
see her again." And yet, as he took off his morning easy coat, and
dressed himself for the streets, and stood for a moment before his
looking-glass, and saw that his gloves were fresh and that his boots
were properly polished, I think there was a care about his person
which he would have hardly taken had he been quite assured that he
simply intended to say good-bye to the lady whom he was about to
visit. But if there were any such conscious feeling, he administered
to himself an antidote before he left the house. On returning to the
sitting-room he went to a little desk from which he took out the
letter from Mary which the reader has seen, and carefully perused
every word of it. "She is the best of them all," he said to himself,
as he refolded the letter and put it back into his desk. I am not
sure that it is well that a man should have any large number from
whom to select a best; as, in such circumstances, he is so very apt
to change his judgment from hour to hour. The qualities which are the
most attractive before dinner sometimes become the least so in the
evening.
The morning was warm, and he took a cab. It would not do that he
should speak even his last farewell to such a one as Madame Goesler
with all the heat and dust of a long walk upon him.
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