very highly esteemed refinement in a man.  She had never met a refined woman, and was convinced that few such existed.  Of course he was rich.  She could be quite sure, from his way of handling money, that he was accustomed to handling money.  She would swear he was a bachelor merely on the evidence of his eyes....  Yes, the affair had lovely possibilities.  Afraid to speak to her, and then ran round Paris after her for five nights!  Had he, then, had the lightning-stroke from her?  It appeared so.  And why not?  She was not like other girls, and this she had always known.  She did precisely the same things as other girls did.  True.  But somehow, subtly, inexplicably, when she did them they were not the same things.  The proof:  he, so refined and distinguished himself, had felt the difference.  She became very tender.

“To think,” she murmured, “that only on that one night in all my life did I go to the Marigny!  And you saw me!”

The coincidence frightened her—­she might have missed this nice, dependable, admiring creature for ever.  But the coincidence also delighted her, strengthening her superstition.  The hand of destiny was obviously in this affair.  Was it not astounding that on one night of all nights he should have been at the Marigny?  Was it not still more astounding that on one night of all nights he should have been in the Promenade in Leicester Square?...  The affair was ordained since before the beginning of time.  Therefore it was serious.

“Ah, my friend!” she said.  “If only you had spoken to me that night at the Marigny, you might have saved me from troubles frightful—­fantastic.”

“How?”

He had confided in her—­and at the right moment.  With her human lore she could not have respected a man who had begun by admitting to a strange and unproved woman that for five days and nights he had gone mad about her.  To do so would have been folly on his part.  But having withheld his wild secret, he had charmingly showed, by the gesture of opening and then shutting the door, that at last it was too strong for his control.  Such candour deserved candour in return.  Despite his age, he looked just then attractively, sympathetically boyish.  He was a benevolent creature.  The responsive kindliness of his enquiring “How?” was beyond question genuine.  Once more, in the warm and dark-glowing comfort of her home, the contrast between the masculine, thick rough overcoat and the feminine, diaphanous, useless kimono appealed to her soul.  It seemed to justify, even to call for, confidence from her to him.

The Italian woman behind the door coughed impatiently and was not heard.

Chapter 5

OSTEND