Eight o'clock
The whole world had changed for him . It was no longer a question of ore and amalgams , it was a question of when he should see again that sad , slender woman with the hopeless smile . He had now a great fear that she would not be able to come down to breakfast at all , but as her coming was his only hope of seeing her he clung to it . Eight o'clock seemed to him to be the latest hour that any one not absolutely bedridden would think of breakfasting , and at four minutes past the hour he entered the dining-room . The negro waiter tried to seat him near the door , but he pushed on down the hall toward a little group near one of the sunny windows , which he took to be the sick girl and her father , and so it proved . His seat at a table next to theirs brought her profile between him and the window , and the light around her head seemed to glorify her till she shone like a figure in a church window . She seemed not concerned with earth .