me it's right, that because of some tragedy like
this--believe me, it is always a tragedy--we should hunt down a woman?
That her fellow-women should make an outcast of her? That we, who are
men, should make a prey of her? If I thought that...." Again he broke
off, staring very hard in front of him. "It is we who make them what they
are; and even if that is not so--why! if I thought there was a woman in
the world I could not take my hat off to--I--I--couldn't sleep at night."
He got up from his seat, put on his old straw hat with trembling fingers,
and, without a glance back, went out, stumbling over the chair-legs.

I sat there, horribly disturbed; the words, "One must try to be a
gentleman!" haunting me. When I came out, he was standing by the
entrance with one hand on his hip and the other on his dog. In that
attitude of waiting he was such a patient figure; the sun glared down and
showed the threadbare nature of his clothes and the thinness of his brown
hands, with their long forgers and nails yellow from tobacco. Seeing me
he came up the steps again, and raised his hat.

"I am glad to have caught you; please forget all that." I asked if he
would do me the honour of dining at my hotel.

"Dine?" he repeated with the sort of smile a child gives if you offer him
a box of soldiers; "with the greatest pleasure. I seldom dine out, but I
think I can muster up a coat. Yes--yes--and at what time shall I come?
At half-past seven, and your hotel is--? Good! I shall be there.
Freda, mia cara, you will be alone this evening. You do not smoke
caporal, I fear. I find it fairly good; though it has too much bite." He
walked off with Freda, puffing at his thin roll of caporal.

Once or twice he stopped, as if bewildered or beset by some sudden doubt
or memory; and every time he stopped, Freda licked his hand. They
disappeared round the corner of the street, and I went to my hotel to see
about dinner. On the way I met Jules le Ferrier, and asked him to come
too.

"My faith, yes!" he said, with the rosy pessimism characteristic of the
French editor. "Man must dine!"

At half-past six we assembled. My "Cosmopolitan" was in an old
frock-coat braided round the edges, buttoned high and tight, defining
more than ever the sharp lines of his shoulders and the slight kink of
his back; he had brought with him, too, a dark-peaked cap of military
shape, which he had evidently selected as more fitting to the coat than a
straw