t scent of its long closure; it contained
a tweed suit of Late Victorian pattern, some bills, some letters, a
collar-stud, and--something which, after I had wondered for a moment or
two what on earth it was, caused me suddenly to murmur, 'Down below, the
sea rustled to and fro over the shingle.'

Strange that these words had, year after long year, been existing in
some obscure cell at the back of my brain!--forgotten but all the while
existing, like the trunk in that cupboard. What released them, what
threw open the cell door, was nothing but the fragment of a fan; just
the butt-end of an inexpensive fan. The sticks are of white bone,
clipped together with a semicircular ring that is not silver. They are
neatly oval at the base, but variously jagged at the other end. The
longest of them measures perhaps two inches. Ring and all, they have no
market value; for a farthing is the least coin in our currency. And yet,
though I had so long forgotten them, for me they are not worthless. They
touch a chord... Lest this confession raise false hopes in the reader, I
add that I did not know their owner.

I did once see her, and in Normandy, and by moonlight, and her name was
Ange'lique. She was graceful, she was even beautiful. I was but nineteen
years old. Yet even so I cannot say that she impressed me favourably.
I was seated at a table of a cafe' on the terrace of a casino. I sat
facing the sea, with my back to the casino. I sat listening to the quiet
sea, which I had crossed that morning. The hour was late, there were few
people about. I heard the swing-door behind me flap open, and was
aware of a sharp snapping and crackling sound as a lady in white passed
quickly by me. I stared at her erect thin back and her agitated elbows.
A short fat man passed in pursuit of her--an elderly man in a black
alpaca jacket that billowed. I saw that she had left a trail of little
white things on the asphalt. I watched the efforts of the agonised short
fat man to overtake her as she swept wraith-like away to the distant end
of the terrace. What was the matter? What had made her so spectacularly
angry with him? The three or four waiters of the cafe' were exchanging
cynical smiles and shrugs, as waiters will. I tried to feel cynical, but
was thrilled with excitement, with wonder and curiosity. The woman out
yonder had doubled on her tracks. She had not slackened her furious
speed, but the man waddlingly contrived to keep pace with her now. With