one
o'clock
`` Love is of man 's life a thing apart , '' applied with full force to Dr. Earl , and he accepted his relations with Leonora Kimball with the same confidence and light heart that might characterize the least thoughtful man on Manhattan Island . While he had traveled many thousands of miles and burned many a midnight lamp to ascertain if improvement could not be made in the prevailing orthodox method of treating disease , he blindly accepted , as millions of strong men before him had done , the prevailing orthodox method of selecting a wife . In any event , after the brother and sister had been left at the Ramsey mansion on upper Fifth Avenue , he and Leonora proceeded to spend the time from eleven to three o'clock very much as other lovers similarly situated would have consumed those four hours . They motored until one o'clock , when they went to her house , not far from his sister 's residence , where he had luncheon with her and her widowed mother , and at three o'clock he arrived at the Hotel Gotham , where he had engaged apartments . When he stepped into his new sitting-room a large photograph of Leonora confronted him on the dressing-case , his valet being a man of rare sense and tact . As he looked into the counterfeit impression of the large blue eyes and reflected back her smile he declared to himself for the twentieth time that day that she was the most fascinating creature in the world . When Dr. Earl arrived at his hotel he noticed crowds of people gathering on the sidewalk , and lining up along the curbstone further down the avenue , evidently expecting a parade of some sort .