, at the time, he was thinking of nothing else. In addition it was
Dona Rita who would have to do the persuading; for, after all, such an
enterprise with its ugly and desperate risks was not a trifle to put
before a man--however young.

It cannot be denied that Mills seems to have acted somewhat
unscrupulously. He himself appears to have had some doubt about it, at a
given moment, as they were driving to the Prado. But perhaps Mills, with
his penetration, understood very well the nature he was dealing with. He
might even have envied it. But it's not my business to excuse Mills. As
to him whom we may regard as Mills' victim it is obvious that he has
never harboured a single reproachful thought. For him Mills is not to be
criticized. A remarkable instance of the great power of mere
individuality over the young.

PART ONE

CHAPTER I

Certain streets have an atmosphere of their own, a sort of universal fame
and the particular affection of their citizens. One of such streets is
the Cannebiere, and the jest: "If Paris had a Cannebiere it would be a
little Marseilles" is the jocular expression of municipal pride. I, too,
I have been under the spell. For me it has been a street leading into
the unknown.

There was a part of it where one could see as many as five big cafes in a
resplendent row. That evening I strolled into one of them. It was by no
means full. It looked deserted, in fact, festal and overlighted, but
cheerful. The wonderful street was distinctly cold (it was an evening of
carnival), I was very idle, and I was feeling a little lonely. So I went
in and sat down.

The carnival time was drawing to an end. Everybody, high and low, was
anxious to have the last fling. Companies of masks with linked arms and
whooping like red Indians swept the streets in crazy rushes while gusts
of cold mistral swayed the gas lights as far as the eye could reach.
There was a touch of bedlam in all this.

Perhaps it was that which made me feel lonely, since I was neither
masked, nor disguised, nor yelling, nor in any other way in harmony with
the bedlam element of life. But I was not sad. I was merely in a state
of sobriety. I had just returned from my second West Indies voyage. My
eyes were still full of tropical splendour, my memory of my experiences,
lawful and lawless, which had their charm and their thrill; for they had
startled me a little and had amused me considerably. But they had left
me