t of the world where
she lived. He was as ubiquitous as the air or the sky. If she went
into a shop, he was pacing on the pavement when she came out. If she
went for a walk he was standing at the place farther than which she had
decided not to go. She had found him examining a waterfall on the
Dodder, leaning over the bear-pit in the Zoological Gardens, and
kneeling beside her in the Chapel, and her sleep had been distressed by
the reflection that maybe he was sitting on her window-sill like a sad
sparrow drenched in the rain, all its feathers on end with the cold,
and its eyes wide open staring at misery.

The first time they met he spoke to her. He plucked a handkerchief
from somewhere and thrust it into her hand, saying--

"You have dropped this, I think"--and she had been too alarmed to
disown it.

It was a mighty handkerchief. It was so big that it would scarcely fit
into her muff.--"It is a table-cloth," said she, as she solemnly
stuffed away its lengthy flaps. "It is his own," she thought a moment
later, and she would have laughed like a mad woman, only that she had
no time, for he was pacing delicately by her side, and talking in a low
voice that was partly a whisper and partly a whistle, and was entirely
and disturbingly delicious.

The next time they met very suddenly. Scarcely a dozen paces separated
them. She could see him advancing towards her, and knew by his knitted
brows that he was searching anxiously for something to say. When they
drew together he lifted his hat and murmured--

"How is your handkerchief to-day?"

The query so astonished her that (the verb is her own) she simply
bawled with laughter. From that moment he treated her with freedom,
for if once you laugh with a person you admit him to equality, you have
ranked him definitely as a vertebrate, your hand is his by right of
species, scarcely can you withhold even your lips from his advances.

Another, a strange, a fascinating thing, was that he was afraid of her.
It was inconceivable, it was mad, but it was true. He looked at her
with disguised terror. His bravado was the slenderest mask. Every
word he said was uttered tentatively, it was subject to her approval,
and if she opposed a statement he dropped it instantly and adopted her
alternative as one adopts a gift. This astonished her who had been
prepared to be terrified. He kept a little distance between them as he
walked, and when she looked at him he looked away. She had a vision