The Penalty by Gouverneur Morris

The next morning Blizzard was fifteen minutes late to his appointment with Barbara. He had sat up all night with O'Hagan, talking energetically, and for once in his life he felt tired. To this feeling was added the fear -- almost ridiculous under the circumstances -- that Barbara would scold him for being late. Unscrupulous brute that he was, his infatuation for her was humanizing him. And in the whole world he dreaded nothing so much, at this time, as a look of displeasure in a girl's face.

He had left off the threadbare clothes in which he usually went begging, and had attired himself in clean linen and immaculate gray broadcloth. His face was exquisitely shaved; his nails trimmed and clean. And there hung about him a faint odor of violets. In short, the male of the species had begun to change his plumage, as is customary in the spring of the year.