ry. Then she saw that it was Peter Erwin.

She drew back her head from the balcony rail, and tried to sit still and
to think, but she was trembling as one stricken with a chill. The cab
stopped; and presently, after an interval, his card was handed her. She
rose, and stood for a moment with her hand against the wall before she
went into the salon. None of the questions she had asked herself were
answered. Was she glad to see him? and what would be his attitude
towards her? When she beheld him standing before her she had strength
only to pronounce his name.

He came forward quickly and took her hand and looked down into her
face. She regarded him tremulously, instinctively guessing the vital
importance of this moment for him; and she knew then that he had been
looking forward to it in mingled hope and dread, as one who gazes
seaward after a night of tempest for the ship he has seen at dusk in the
offing. What had the tempest done to her? Such was his question. And her
heart leaped as she saw the light growing in his eyes, for it meant much
to her that he should see that she was not utterly dismantled. She fell;
his own hand tremble as he relinquished hers. He was greatly moved; his
voice, too, betrayed it.

"You see I have found you," he said.

"Yes," she answered; "--why did you come?"

"Why have I always come to you, when it was possible?" he asked.

"No one ever had such a friend, Peter. Of that I am sure:'

"I wanted to see Paris," he said, "before I grew too decrepit to enjoy
it."

She smiled, and turned away.

"Have you seen much of it?"

"Enough to wish to see more."

"When did you arrive?"

"Some time in the night," he said, "from Cherbourg. And I'm staying at
a very grand hotel, which might be anywhere. A man I crossed with on the
steamer took me there. I think I'd move to one of the quieter ones,
the French ones, if I were a little surer of my pronunciation and the
subjunctive mood."

"You don't mean to say you've been studying French!"

He coloured a little, and laughed.

"You think it ridiculous at my time of life? I suppose you're right.
You should have seen me trying to understand the cabmen. The way these
people talk reminds me more of a Gatling gun than anything I can think
of. It certainly isn't human."

"Perhaps you have come over as ambassador," she suggested. "When I saw
you in the cab, even before I recognized you, I thought of a bit of our
soil broken off and drifted over here."