And behold another woman! She had been wise, and dejected him; now she was unwise, to make amends. Behold a myriad women in one. Before half an hour had passed she had told him her philosophy was a puff ball, that she had prated reason only to be reasoned with. And she told him so without a word about it--said so by the modulation of her voice while they talked trifles. And Conrad? Conrad had been scrambling to the point of friendship, and he slipped back to folly. Conrad strove to forget that discomfiting phrase, "You are in love with a memory, not with me." It made the folly so difficult. He could not succeed in forgetting it. It was in his mind next day, coldly a fact. Yes, he was making love to Mrs. Adaile because she was Mrs. Adaile, not because she was a charming woman. He knew that if they hadn't met before he came to Ostend, he might have admired her, tried to know her, grown to like her, but that he would never have said to her what he had said. Nor wished to say it. Yet there was the regnant truth that it was she. She had the fascination of sharing with him his dearest, his sweetest remembrances; the radiance of the past still tinged her--in her keeping lay the wonder of his youth. So they ate Neapolitan ices in the morning, and she brought down the doyley in the afternoon, and they listened to Chopin again in the evening. It was the last evening. The Bletchworths and she were leaving early on the morrow, and he was unlikely to be alone with her again before she went. "I wish you weren't going," he said. "How horribly I shall miss you! I sha'n't stop here. Why aren't you going to Homburg, instead of to people in Scotland? Then we might have met again." "Are you going to Homburg to be 'cured'?" "I think I shall go there. Or to Antwerp. Yes, I shall go to Antwerp first. I was there when I was a boy. I was happy in Antwerp." "How funny you are," she said involuntarily. "I've never found anyone much entertained by me. How?" "You'll go to Antwerp, of all places in the world, because you liked it when you were a boy! Antwerp will disappoint you--too." "You could always stab deep with a monosyllable," he said, "but you used to have more mercy." "I'm sorry I have deteriorated," said the lady rather stiffly. She leant back in her chair, and a minute passed in silence. She gave her attention to the orchestra, tapping time with the tip of a shoe. "Does it amuse you to say cruel things to me?" asked Conrad. "If it does, by all means say what you like." "I don't understand you." She drooped disdainful eyelids. "What you said was unworthy of you. You know it was." "I really forget what I did say. Please talk about something else. What is it they are playing?" They were playing _Cavalleria_ now, so he scorned to reply to this otherwise than by a look. "I asked you a question," she said in tones of ice.