A few days later a fashionable gathering took place. It was held in a beautifully situated house, having extensive grounds, fine gardens, and magnificent views of the surrounding seaboard. Everyone of any local importance was there. Amongst the guests was an Englishman. Five minutes' intercourse with him would have been amply sufficient to have based the conclusion that he was one of those effeminate, lisping, soft, silly slackers, who hang round tea-tables and curates' meetings, and who have a horror of all things manly. He was dressed in a neat suit of blue serge. Every speck of dust coming to it was at once flicked off with a silk handkerchief. His trousers were of the permanent turned-up cut, carefully pressed and creased. He sported bright yellow wash-leather gloves and spent most of his time toying with a rimmed eyeglass. That he was shy, reticent, and retiring was at once obvious, but in spite of a vacuous, far-away look, his eyes seemed to travel over most of the company, and whenever any serious conversation took place he appeared to be wandering aimlessly about, but well within earshot. One lady in the crowd seemed to take a more than ordinary interest in this personage. She was a bright-eyed, vivacious, sweet-faced woman of between twenty and thirty years of age. She was also a clever and far-seeing individual--one who watches, listens, and observes to advantage. The stranger's face attracted her. She felt somehow that it was familiar. She was sure that she had seen it before; but when, or where, puzzled her. An introduction was an easy matter. Soon she was sipping tea and exchanging views on every-day frivolities with the object which for the moment so attracted her curiosity. I can assure those who read these lines that the object in question wished himself anywhere but where he was. "It is most unusual to meet an Englishman who speaks our language, even badly. How is it that you seem to know it so well?" she suddenly asked; experience having apparently taught her that questions leading up to the point desired merely forewarned the interrogated. "No, no. You flatter me. I'm positively wrotten on the grammar. I only know a number of words. You see, I had to learn those because I come to your delightful country so much on business, also for sport," I replied. "Business? What kind of business?" she asked. "Well, you see, I'm rather interwested in wood and in herwings." "Oh yes! And sport?" "Well, you see, I come here every year for fishing." For some moments the lady maintained an ominous silence, whilst her eyes focussed the horizon of some distant islands lying far out upon the smooth and sunlit sea. She smiled to herself, as though she had caught a delusive object of great worth; then, turning her fair head--and she really was pretty--so that she could look me full in the eyes, she asked: "Is it your business or your sport which gives you so much fascination for the sea?"