as going
to take her in to dinner, she very nearly begged to be given another
partner. She felt that her nature must be in opposition to this man's.

Artois was not eager for the honor of her company. He was a careful
dissecter of women, and, therefore, understood how mysterious women are;
but in his intimate life they counted for little. He regarded them there
rather as the European traveller regards the Mousmes of Japan, as
playthings, and insisted on one thing only--that they must be pretty. A
Frenchman, despite his unusual intellectual power, he was not wholly
emancipated from the la petite femme tradition, which will never be
outmoded in Paris while Paris hums with life, and, therefore, when he was
informed that he was to take in to dinner the tall, solidly built,
big-waisted, rugged-faced woman, whom he had been observing from a
distance ever since he came into the drawing-room, he felt that he was
being badly treated by his hostess.

Yet he had been observing this woman closely.

Something unusual, something vital in her had drawn his attention, fixed
it, held it. He knew that, but said to himself that it was the attention
of the novelist that had been grasped by an uncommon human specimen, and
that the man of the world, the diner-out, did not want to eat in company
with a specimen, but to throw off professional cares with a gay little
chatterbox of the Mousme type. Therefore he came over to be presented to
Hermione with rather a bad grace.

And that introduction was the beginning of the great friendship which was
now troubling him in the fog.

By the end of that evening Hermione and he had entirely rid themselves of
their preconceived notions of each other. She had ceased from imagining
him a walking intellect devoid of sympathies, he from considering her a
possibly interesting specimen, but not the type of woman who could be
agreeable in a man's life. Her naturalness amounted almost to genius. She
was generally unable to be anything but natural, unable not to speak as
she was feeling, unable to feel unsympathetic. She always showed keen
interest when she felt it, and, with transparent sincerity, she at once
began to show to Artois how much interested she was in him. By doing so
she captivated him at once. He would not, perhaps, have been captivated
by the heart without the brains, but the two in combination took
possession of him with an ease which, when the evening was over, but only
then, caused him some