"Then you must hear something you haven't read before," I replied, and went across to my room to fetch a few pages I had written. They were only a few poems--nothing special, just a few small verses. Not that I am in the habit of reading such things aloud, but I seized on this for the moment because I wanted to prevent her from humbling herself, and telling me anything more. While I was reading the poems to her, the actor returned. "I couldn't find any galoshes there," he said. "No?" she replied absently. "No, I really looked everywhere, but...." She got up and left the room. He looked after her in some surprise, and sat still for a moment. Then it occurred to him. "I believe her galoshes are in the passage outside her door," he said, and hurried after her. I sat back, thinking it over. There had been a sweetness in her face as she said, "Yes, you're very silent." Had she seen through me and my pretext for reading to her? Of course she had. She was no fool. I was the fool, nobody else. I should have driven a sportsman to despair. Some practice the sport of making conquests and the sport of making love, because they find it so agreeable; I have never practiced sport of any kind. I have loved and raged and suffered and stormed according to my nature--that is all; I am an old-fashioned man. And here I sit in the shadow of evening, the shadow of the half-century. Let me have done! The actor returned to the living room confused and dejected. She had turned him out; she had wept. I was not surprised, for it was the mode of expression of her type. "Have you ever heard the like of it? She told me to get out! I shall leave tomorrow." "Have you found the galoshes?" I asked. "Of course," he replied. "They were right in the passage. 'Here they are,' I said to her. 'Yes, yes,' she said. 'Right under your nose,' I said. 'Yes, yes, go away,' she said, and began to cry. So I went away." "She'll get over it." "Do you think so? Yes, I expect she will. Oh, well, it's my opinion nobody can understand women, anyhow. But they're a mighty sex, the women, a mighty sex. They certainly are." He sat on a while, but he had no peace of mind, and soon went out again. * * * * * That evening the lady was in the dining room before us; she was there when we came in, and we all nodded slightly in greeting. To the actor she was very kind, quite making up for her petulance of the afternoon. When he sat down he found a letter in his table napkin: a written note folded into the napkin. He was so surprised that he dropped everything he was doing to unfold and read it. With an exclamation and a smile, his blue, delighted eyes splashed over her; but she was looking down into her lap with her forehead wrinkled, so he put the note away in his vest pocket. Then it probably dawned on him that he had betrayed her, and he tried to cover it up somehow.