You can never be absolutely sure of the meaning of anything you read in such circumstances; you are chasing an alert and gamy riddle all the time, and the baffling turns and dodges of the prey make the life of the hunt.

A dictionary would spoil it.

Sometimes a single word of doubtful purport will cast a veil of dreamy and golden uncertainty over a whole paragraph of cold and practical certainties, and leave steeped in a haunting and adorable mystery an incident which had been vulgar and commonplace but for that benefaction.

Would you be wise to draw a dictionary on that gracious word?
would you be properly grateful?
After a couple of days' rest I now come back to my subject and seek a case in point.

I find it without trouble, in the morning paper; a cablegram from Chicago and Indiana by way of Paris.