t was here that I had first met her. The
dripping trees seemed to hold the echo of the words spoken when their
leaves were green: "Will you please to tell me what I shall do?" I
strained my eyes to see the bench on which I had sat, and my eyes
tricked me into translating a blurr at the end of the seat into the
ghostly form of Carlotta. My misery overwhelmed me; and through my
misery shot a swift pang of remorse at having treated her harshly on
that sweet and memorable afternoon in May.

I turned the corner at Whitehall Place and looked down the desolate
gardens. The benches were empty, the trees were bare, "and no birds
sang." I crossed the road.

The Hotel Metropole. The great doors stood invitingly open, and from the
pavement one could see the warmth and colour of the vestibule. Here was
staying the Arch-Devil who had robbed me of my life. I stood for a moment
under the portico shaking with rage. I must have lost consciousness for
a few seconds for I do not remember entering or mounting the stairs.
I found myself at the bureau asking for Hamdi Effendi. No, he had not
left. They thought he was in the hotel. A page despatched in search
of him departed with my card, bawling a number. I hate these big
caravanserais where one is a mere number, as in a gaol. "Would to heaven
it were a gaol," I muttered to myself, "and this were the number of
Hamdi Effendi!"

A lean man rose from a chair and, holding out his hand, effusively
saluted me by name. I stared at him. He recalled our acquaintance at
Etretat. I fished him up from the deeps of a previous incarnation and
vaguely remembered him as a young American floral decorator who used to
preach to me the eternal doctrine of hustle. I shook hands with him and
hoped that he was well.

"Going very strong. Never stronger. Never so well as when I'm full up
with work. But you don't hurry around enough in this dear, sleepy old
country. Men lunch. In New York all the lunch one has time for is to
swallow a plasmon lozenge in a street-car."

His high pitched voice shrieked bombastic platitude into my ears for an
illimitable time. I answered occasionally with the fringe of my mind.
Could my agonised state of being have remained unperceived by any human
creature save this young, hustling, dollar-centred New York floral
decorator?

"Since we met, guess how many times I've crossed the Atlantic. Four
times!"

Long-suffering Atlantic!

"And about yourself. Still going _piano, piano_ wi