s Mavis's, for when I
mounted to the deck at the end of half an hour I found her there alone,
in the stern of the ship, looking back at the dwindling continent. It
dwindled very fast for so big a place. I accosted her, having had no
conversation with her amid the crowd of leave-takers and the muddle of
farewells before we put off; we talked a little about the boat, our
fellow-passengers and our prospects, and then I said--'I think you
mentioned last night a name I know--that of Mr. Porterfield.'

'Oh no, I never uttered it,' she replied, smiling at me through her
closely-drawn veil.

'Then it was your mother.'

'Very likely it was my mother.' And she continued to smile, as if I
ought to have known the difference.

'I venture to allude to him because I have an idea I used to know him,'
I went on.

'Oh, I see.' Beyond this remark she manifested no interest in my having
known him.

'That is if it's the same one.' It seemed to me it would be silly to say
nothing more; so I added 'My Mr. Porterfield was called David.'

'Well, so is ours.' 'Ours' struck me as clever.

'I suppose I shall see him again if he is to meet you at Liverpool,' I
continued.

'Well, it will be bad if he doesn't.'

It was too soon for me to have the idea that it would be bad if he did:
that only came later. So I remarked that I had not seen him for so many
years that it was very possible I should not know him.'

'Well, I have not seen him for a great many years, but I expect I shall
know him all the same.'

'Oh, with you it's different,' I rejoined, smiling at her. 'Hasn't he
been back since those days?'

'I don't know what days you mean.'

'When I knew him in Paris--ages ago. He was a pupil of the Ecole des
Beaux Arts. He was studying architecture.'

'Well, he is studying it still,' said Grace Mavis.

'Hasn't he learned it yet?'

'I don't know what he has learned. I shall see.' Then she added:
'Architecture is very difficult and he is tremendously thorough.'

'Oh, yes, I remember that. He was an admirable worker. But he must have
become quite a foreigner, if it's so many years since he has been at
home.'

'Oh, he is not changeable. If he were changeable----' But here my
interlocutress paused. I suspect she had been going to say that if he
were changeable he would have given her up long ago. After an instant
she went on: 'He wouldn't have stuck so to his profession. You can't
make much by it.'

'You can't make much?'

'It d