"You may imagine that I was not justified in saying in so many words that I was no gentleman, that I was prejudicing myself in that man's eyes, wantonly. I don't defend it altogether, I was eager at the time, full of the radical philosophy of the period, anxious to stand on my own feet. I saw men in the flat, so to speak. Men _and_ women. They were decorative forms rather than souls like myself. My girl had been like that, too, when I first saw her, a decorative form, exquisite, pathetic, entrancing. But the magic of the business was that slowly she was emerging from among those figures of two dimensions and coming to sit beside me, a companion. I had never had one before. There might never have been such a thing happen before to anybody, it seemed so strange and so astonishingly fortunate! For years I didn't get used to it. And if I am, in a way, accustomed to the idea now, it is only the occasional veiling of a vision, a breathing on the glass, as it were. At sea it will come upon me like a dream of misfortune--if we had never met, if--if--if! Who can tell? "Mr. Hank and Rebecca were sitting in the little room upstairs one evening when I came in for Rosa and I told them my adventures at the Hotel Robinson. They were drinking whisky, I remember, and talking together in a low tone, like conspirators. Rebecca laughed. "'Ah!' said she. 'I scared him that time, eh, Oscar?' "'You!' he answered in good-humoured contempt. 'You made a big mistake there, my dear.' "'Well,' she retorted. 'And who was it gave me the tip? Who was it said that English doctor was worth trying, eh?' "'I did,' said Oscar, looking at me and winking, 'but I didn't tell you to go and make a fool of yourself and spoil the game.' "'Easy to say that after,' she grumbled, and became aware of me looking at both of them in great perplexity. "'_Non capisce_', she added to her husband. "'The doctor mentioned a painful incident,' I remarked. "'The devil he did!' they ejaculated, looking at me in astonishment, and Rebecca went on. 'It was nothing at all, you know. I thought he was a man. There was me sitting in the tramcar with Rosa on my lap, three or four years old, and he comes in by-and-bye and sits down opposite. And Rosetta--you know how little girls will take a fancy to a gentleman--Rosetta holds out her hands and smiles at him like a little angel. He was leaning his hands on his stick and she reached out and took hold of it and says 'la-la!' And I says 'see the nice gentleman's stick,' and she gurgles 'la-la!' again. Cunning! What a bird she was! And you'd think any human-made man 'ud give the duck a penny and say how pretty she was. Not he. He sat there like a stone until I caught his eye and bowed to him.' "'Fancy that!' said Mr. Hank in some contempt. 'Because I told her he was the doctor of the ship when Rosa was born, she thinks he's the father and goes up to the Hotel Robinson and wants money. Clever woman!'