Already the seed of a tender dream was stirring.

The hour for which, presumably, she had been created was drawing nigh.

For in life there is but one hour: an epic or an idyll: all other hours lead up to and down from it.
"By the way," said the doctor, as he sat down in the dining room of the Victoria and ordered tea, "I've been thinking it over." "What ?" "We'll put those stories back into the trunk and never speak of them to him." "But why not ?" The doctor dallied with his teaspoon.

Something about the girl had suggested an idea.

It would have been the right idea, had Ruth been other than what she was.