chain shot out at me a
slender tongue like a pink dart. I was not prepared for this, not even
to the extent of an appreciative "_Tres foli_," before she wriggled and
hopped away. But having been thus distinguished I could do no less than
follow her with my eyes to the door where the chain of hands being broken
all the masks were trying to get out at once. Two gentlemen coming in
out of the street stood arrested in the crush. The Night (it must have
been her idiosyncrasy) put her tongue out at them, too. The taller of
the two (he was in evening clothes under a light wide-open overcoat) with
great presence of mind chucked her under the chin, giving me the view at
the same time of a flash of white teeth in his dark, lean face. The
other man was very different; fair, with smooth, ruddy cheeks and burly
shoulders. He was wearing a grey suit, obviously bought ready-made, for
it seemed too tight for his powerful frame.

That man was not altogether a stranger to me. For the last week or so I
had been rather on the look-out for him in all the public places where in
a provincial town men may expect to meet each other. I saw him for the
first time (wearing that same grey ready-made suit) in a legitimist
drawing-room where, clearly, he was an object of interest, especially to
the women. I had caught his name as Monsieur Mills. The lady who had
introduced me took the earliest opportunity to murmur into my ear: "A
relation of Lord X." (_Un proche parent de Lord X_.) And then she
added, casting up her eyes: "A good friend of the King." Meaning Don
Carlos of course.

I looked at the _proche parent_; not on account of the parentage but
marvelling at his air of ease in that cumbrous body and in such tight
clothes, too. But presently the same lady informed me further: "He has
come here amongst us _un naufrage_."

I became then really interested. I had never seen a shipwrecked person
before. All the boyishness in me was aroused. I considered a shipwreck
as an unavoidable event sooner or later in my future.

Meantime the man thus distinguished in my eyes glanced quietly about and
never spoke unless addressed directly by one of the ladies present.
There were more than a dozen people in that drawing-room, mostly women
eating fine pastry and talking passionately. It might have been a
Carlist committee meeting of a particularly fatuous character. Even my
youth and inexperience were aware of that. And I was by a long way