She did not speak these thoughts aloud, for she had not told her mother, not from any natural love of concealment, but because any announcement of her plans for the afternoon would have made them seem less certain of fulfilment.

Perhaps, too, she had felt an unacknowledged fear of certain of her mother's phrases that could delicately puncture delight.
She had been dropped at the house by ten minutes after four, and exactly at a quarter before five she had been in the drawing-room, in her favorite dress, with her best slippers, her hands cold, but her heart warm with the knowledge that he would soon be there.
Only after forty-five minutes of waiting did that faith begin to grow dim.

She was too inexperienced in such matters to know that this was the inevitable consequence of being ready too early.

She had had time to run through the whole cycle of certainty, eagerness, doubt, and she was now rapidly approaching despair.

He was not coming.