"I am so sorry to have startled you," she said, "but I was startled myself. I saw someone in there whom I have always hoped that I should never meet again. I hope--I am sure that he did not see me." "He certainly did not follow you out," Brendon answered. "His back was towards me," Anna said. "I saw his face in a mirror. I wonder----" "London is a huge place," Brendon said. "Even if he lives here you may go all your life and never come face to face with him again." _Chapter XIV_ "THIS IS MY WIFE" Anna, notwithstanding her momentary fright in the middle of the day, was in high spirits. She felt that for a time at any rate her depressing struggle against continual failure was at an end. She had paid her bill, and she had enough left in her purse to pay many such. Beyond that everything was nebulous. She knew that in her new rôle she was as likely as not to be a rank failure. But the relief from the strain of her immediate necessities was immense. She had been in the drawing-room for a few minutes before the gong had sounded, and had chattered gaily to every one. Now, in her old place, she was doing her best thoroughly to enjoy a most indifferent dinner. "Your brother has gone?" she asked Sydney, between the courses. He nodded. "Yes. David left this afternoon. I do not think that he has quite got over his surprise at finding you established here." She laughed. "After all, why should he be surprised?" she remarked. "Of course, one lives differently in Paris, but then--Paris is Paris. I think that a boarding-house is the very best place for a woman who wants to develop her sense of humour. Only I wish that it did not remind one so much of a second-hand clothes shop." Sydney looked at her doubtfully. "Now I suppose Brendon understands exactly what you mean," he remarked. "He looks as though he did, at any rate. I don't! Please enlighten me." She laughed gaily--and she had a way when she laughed of throwing back her head and showing her beautiful white teeth, so that mirth from her was a thing very much to be desired. "Look round the table," she said. "Aren't we all just odds and ends of humanity--the left-overs, you know. There is something inconglomerate about us. We are amiable to one another, but we don't mix. We can't." "You and I and Brendon get on all right, don't we?" Sydney objected. "But that's quite different," replied Anna. "You are neither of you in the least like the ordinary boarding-house young man. You don't wear a dinner coat with a flower in your button-hole, or last night's shirt, or very glossy boots, nor do you haunt the drawing-room in the evening, or play at being musical. Besides----"