Perhaps he had never meant to come.

Possibly he had merely yielded to a polite impulse; possibly her manner had betrayed her wishes so plainly that a clever, older person, two or three years out of college, had only too clearly read her in the moment when she had detained his hand at the door of the ball-room.
There was a ring at the bell.

Her heart stood perfectly still, and then began beating with a terrible force, as if it gathered itself into a hard, weighty lump again and again.

Several minutes went by, too long for a man to give to taking off his coat.

At last she got up and cautiously opened the door; a servant was carrying a striped cardboard box to her mother's room.