"My brother was perfectly sincere when he burst out laughing at me. He didn't believe me for a minute. The idea of my 'walking-out' with a young lady in Genoa was comic. It was of a piece with all the rest of my damn foolishness. I never attempted to explain my feelings to him, and I don't suppose he understands to this day the terrible pain his laugh gave me. You can realize, when I'd been known to Rosa so long, that it would. "My brother, somewhat to my surprise, left it at that. He threw up his hands, still holding the lottery-tickets, and turned away. We went into the theatre, and when we were fixed in the _poltrone_, seats where you can have a little table brought to you for the drinks and ices, I was able to explain something of my brother's record to Rosa. Every thing I told her about him interested her. Compared with my own history it was a story of adventure indeed. She would ask questions to lead me on. 'What did he do then?' When I told her simply that I'd met him 'down and out' at Buenos Ayres, she was so sorry. The mere trifling fact that he'd robbed one woman and swindled half-a-dozen others didn't matter. Of course, I couldn't tell her the details of Gladys' story--he had me there! And I wouldn't lower myself to speak of how he tried to choke me. After all, I believe that was a mistake. He wouldn't do that to me knowingly. So that you see, when you come to look at the tale I told Rosa, what wasn't downright pathetic and unfortunate was romantic and daring. Rosa was a quiet girl. We didn't quarrel over the matter, but I could see she was thinking of my brother, a fine figure of a man, by the way. "I am quite sure now, after all these years, that it was what we would call just a passing interest. All women have their sudden romantic likings for strange men who catch their imaginations. I remember taking tea one afternoon in the house of a friend on Clapham Common. His sister, a middle-aged woman, and a friend of hers, middle-aged too, entertained me until my friend came in. These two women, fat and forty, could talk of nothing else for some time but a wonderfully nice 'bus-conductor they had spoken to coming back from Richmond. 'Oh, he _was_ such a nice man!' they said, and then they'd look at each other. I was younger then and slightly scandalized. Women are queer. I suppose in a week they'd forgotten his very existence; but at the time, 'Oh, he _was_ a nice man!' So it was with Rosa. Frank had filled her imagination, as he always did; but if she had not seen him again it would have passed like a mist. "I don't blame her, nor even Frank, now. It was a tragical accident, and very nearly wrecked my happiness. You may say I ought to have left him in Buenos Ayres. I thought so at one time; but I believe now it would have made no difference. We were bound to meet some day. It was fate.