Had I vexed her? What had I said? what had I done? I went over and over again every word of our talks: every mood of hers, every blush and glance and smile, lived again for me. We had spoken of many things those mornings we had met, yet there had been small reference to our mutual relations; and certainly if there were love-making on my part, it had colored none of our moods to any passion. I had travelled and seen many people: I had been introduced in courts, and had, by Mr. Floyd's influence, penetrated into an exclusive and brilliant continental society, where I had found much to observe. These reminiscences of mine had delighted Georgina: she had the irresistible feminine instinct for details, the analysis of which made a mastery of brilliant results easily attainable to her who possessed, to begin with, remarkable beauty, and, if not tact, so bewildering a way of doing what she chose that in the eyes of men at least she lacked nothing which grace and good taste could teach her. She was always anxious, too, to hear everything concerning Mr. Floyd--his friends abroad, his habits, his _vie intime_ at certain houses which had been his favorite lounge for years while he was minister at ----. Garrulity was by no means my habit in those days, but I had talked to her very freely: indeed, she could do with me what she wished. But why had she suddenly given me up? Had she tired of me, exhausted me, wrung my mind dry of interest; and flung me by like a squeezed orange? I lay in wait for her in the passages that I might speak to her, but she seemed never to be alone any more. I would lurk in her path for hours, only to be rewarded by the sight of her dress vanishing in another direction. I wrote her notes, to none of which would she reply. "If a woman flies, she flies to be pursued," I had heard all my life. Elusive, mocking goddess that she was, I felt every day more and more ardent in my pursuit, yet I rarely saw her now except at breakfast, when she was demure, a little weary, and altogether indifferent to me. I determined to follow her into society. It was early in July now, and the watering-place life was at its gayest. I had hitherto accepted no invitations, from respect for the habits of the house where I was staying, but now I examined with interest every card and note brought to me. Accordingly, I set out on a round of pleasure-seeking, which soon transformed me from a boy whose foolish aim in life was to be as clever as other men into an impassioned lover. Other men may look back upon their first love with a certain pleasing sentimentality: in spite of all the years that now lie between me and the fever of those few months at The Headlands, I still suffer bitterly from the recollection of that time. CHAPTER XVIII.