On the terrace it was very agreeable. The orchestra did not sound too insistent, and they found chairs where they could watch the people promenade without being inconvenienced by them. Extremes meet, and Ostend is their meeting-place. Only a light railing divides the fashionable world, and the half world from the world that works. On one side plod a humble flock of wearied trippers, who have had tea "As nice as mother makes it," in a sweltering shop at the back of the town. Among the shell pin-cushions, the franc souvenirs, they have had tea. All the evening they pass and repass with flagging feet, wishing they had chosen Margate. On the other side, women who were born in the same class trail Paquin's gowns. On the necks of some there are flowers that have cost as much as a tripper's holiday; a diamond in an ear is worth more than the price of a tripper's home. And Maggie from Dalston, with three tired children clinging to her ten-and-sixpenny skirt, gazes across that slender rail, and thinks. And her thoughts might be unpleasant to hear. A really extraordinary thing was that no one but Conrad seemed aware that the railing bisected two worlds and a half. As for Conrad his reflections engrossed him so much that he quite forgot to attend to Mrs. Adaile. Only when he chanced to notice she was looking pensive in the starlight did it occur to him that he was ignoring a situation by which he ought to be thrilled. For here they were. The stars were twinkling, the waves were murmuring, the lady was waiting. It was true her sister and Bletchworth were in the way, but even allowing for their presence this should mean emotion. Where was it? On the terrace while he made small talk, and on the Plage when they strolled back, and as he smoked his last cigar that night in the garden, the question in Conrad's mind was insistently "Where is the emotion?" Because she was still an attractive woman, and he perceived it. He was even making love to her--to _her_, to Mrs. Adaile!--and she was not adamant. What had happened to him? Where were his transports, the spiritual whirlwinds, where was everything that he had travelled to recover? She had a whim to do fancy work in the salon next day during the hour when the women changed their déjeuner dresses for the five-o'clock-to-seven costumes. He had met her as she was passing his door--their rooms were in the same passage--and they had gone downstairs together. "You've told me nothing of your life since we used to know each other," he said, playing with a thimble. "What would you like me to tell you?" "You used to tell me a good deal--if I am privileged to remember it." "I'm afraid I did. How I must have bored you! It was rather a shame. But I was in my egotistical stage, and you listened with such big eyes--Con."