The next morning Blizzard was fifteen minutes late to his appointment
with Barbara. He had sat up all night with O'Hagan, talking
energetically, and for once in his life he felt tired. To this feeling
was added the fear--almost ridiculous under the circumstances--that
Barbara would scold him for being late. Unscrupulous brute that he was,
his infatuation for her was humanizing him. And in the whole world he
dreaded nothing so much, at this time, as a look of displeasure in a
girl's face.
He had left off the threadbare clothes in which he usually went begging,
and had attired himself in clean linen and immaculate gray broadcloth.
His face was exquisitely shaved; his nails trimmed and clean. And there
hung about him a faint odor of violets. In short, the male of the
species had begun to change his plumage, as is customary in the spring
of the year.
His mouth full of apology, he hurried up the stairs to the studio, only
to find that Barbara herself had not yet arrived. Upon the seat of the
chair in which he always posed, the legless man perceived an envelope
addressed to himself. This contained a short note: