Jane going out to dinner with me , believing me to be Clark Oliver ! Jane -- but it was incredible ! The whole thing was a dream -- or I had gone crazy ! I looked at her sideways when we had got into our places at the table . She was more beautiful than ever , that tall , brown-haired , disdainful Jane . The settlement work story I was inclined to dismiss as a myth . Settlement work in a beautiful woman generally means crowsfeet or a broken heart . Jane , according to my sight and belief , possessed neither . Once upon a time I had been engaged to Jane . I had been idiotically in love with her in those days and still more idiotically believed that she loved me . The trouble was that , although I had been cured of the latter phase of my idiocy , the former had become chronic . I had never been able to get over loving Jane . All through those two years I had hugged the fond hope that sometime I might stumble across her in a mild mood and make matters up . There was no such thing as seeking her out or writing to her , since she had icily forbidden me to do so , and Jane had a most detestable habit -- in a woman -- of meaning what she said . But the deity I had invoked was the god of chance -- and this was how he had answered my prayers . I was eating my dinner beside Jane , who supposed me to be Clark Oliver ! What should I do ? Confess the truth and plead my cause while she had to sit beside me ? That would never do . Someone might overhear us .
And , in any case , it would be no passport to Jane 's favor that I was a guest XXXXX the house under false pretences .
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