"I paid off the cab in the Strand and walked into the hotel. Men and women in evening dress were alighting for early theatre-dinners. I sent up my name as before. I had no very clear idea what I wanted to do. Oh, of course I wanted to see her again. I had no scruples. She was more interesting, more her father's daughter, than ever, to me now. As Florian Kelly had said, she was a wonder, but she could do me no harm. She was an artist, let us say, and as such I wished to see her at work. Beyond that there was another feeling, a sort of fatherly affection--a silly notion of protecting her from herself. But that young devil of a painter had divined that, too, and I sat down to wait, ashamed, amused, astonished. I recalled the conversations we had had on the ship and on the cliff, the subtle implication in her voice, the pity she had inspired in me by the contemplation of her disastrous fate. I had put my arm round her, given her my address, behaved like a sentimental old fool. And all the time her brain had been working, weighing, comparing, judging chances, and leading me on. But had she done so? Oh, women are wonderful! Their emotional imperturbability defies analysis. They weep, confess, cajole, attack, reproach, renounce, and at the end of it all you are as baffled as ever. Their souls are like those extraordinary bronze mirrors one sees nowadays. You look and see a picture. You go off in amused annoyance, your head over your shoulder, and see another picture. And when you come back again determined to be fair and candid, you see yet another picture, or perhaps a mere shining blank, a dazzling and expensive enigma. I knew all this. I saw all this; and yet I lingered. I was unable to resist the piquant pleasure of watching the girl, of occupying the position of confidant. I understood how the obscure husband of a celebrated theatrical star must feel without experiencing his grim regret. And when the page, in his blue and silver, with his miraculously brushed hair, and his expression of almost unearthly cleanliness, carried me upward once more, I had attained the right mood again for meeting these adventures in vicarious emotion. After all, for those of us to whom the avenues of fame, of wealth, of the domestic virtues are closed, there remains an occasional ramble in the romantic bye-ways of life. One may still meet young knights in shining armour, haughty kings and queens, and women with unfathomable eyes engaged upon mysterious quests. We can always run back to our old mother, the sea, and restore our souls upon her comfortable bosom. "And I found myself again in that palatial apartment. There was no one there apparently. The page had closed the door and left me. I turned at the sound of a voice and saw her standing in the doorway of the next room, a figure in pale, shimmering gold, holding back a _portière_ of heavy dark blue velvet. Holding it back for me to enter, and watching me with the old, derisive, questioning smile.