ore
attractive in winter. The acrid savour from woodsmoke and
chestnut-roasting braziers, the sharpness of the wintry sunshine on
bright rays, the open cafes defying keen-aired winter, the self-contained
brisk boulevard crowds, all informed him that in winter Paris possessed a
soul which, like a migrant bird, in high summer flew away.

He spoke French well, had some friends, knew little places where pleasant
dishes could be met with, queer types observed. He felt philosophic in
Paris, the edge of irony sharpened; life took on a subtle, purposeless
meaning, became a bunch of flavours tasted, a darkness shot with shifting
gleams of light.

When in the first week of December he decided to go to Paris, he was far
from admitting that Irene's presence was influencing him. He had not been
there two days before he owned that the wish to see her had been more
than half the reason. In England one did not admit what was natural. He
had thought it might be well to speak to her about the letting of her
flat and other matters, but in Paris he at once knew better. There was a
glamour over the city. On the third day he wrote to her, and received an
answer which procured him a pleasurable shiver of the nerves:
"MY DEAR JOLYON,

"It will be a happiness for me to see you.
"IRENE."

He took his way to her hotel on a bright day with a feeling such as he
had often had going to visit an adored picture. No woman, so far as he
remembered, had ever inspired in him this special sensuous and yet
impersonal sensation. He was going to sit and feast his eyes, and come
away knowing her no better, but ready to go and feast his eyes again
to-morrow. Such was his feeling, when in the tarnished and ornate little
lounge of a quiet hotel near the river she came to him preceded by a
small page-boy who uttered the word, "Madame," and vanished. Her face,
her smile, the poise of her figure, were just as he had pictured, and the
expression of her face said plainly: 'A friend!'

"Well," he said, "what news, poor exile?"

"None."

"Nothing from Soames?"

"Nothing."

"I have let the flat for you, and like a good steward I bring you some
money. How do you like Paris?"

While he put her through this catechism, it seemed to him that he had
never seen lips so fine and sensitive, the lower lip curving just a
little upwards, the upper touched at one corner by the least conceivable
dimple. It was like discovering a woman in what had hitherto been