He had been almost certain he knew her, but where he had seen her face before he could not for the life of him remember. Perhaps he did not know her after all; indeed, when he came to think of it, no memory of a voice seemed to go with the face, so that the probability was that if he had seen her before he had never spoken to her. She had been standing, in that blue twilight, clear of the throng, under the single crimson pier-head light, looking out over the water that seemed still to reflect a light that had faded from the sky, and for a moment John Willie had wondered what she was looking at. The next moment he had seen--and so, confound it, had twenty others. A yellow spot, like a riding-light, had risen out of the sea; almost as quickly as the second-hand of a watch moves, it had become a tip; and then the lookers-in at the glass sides of the Pavilion had run to see the rising of the bloated, refraction-magnified, burning yellow horn. In that little running of people he had lost her. Twice, thrice he had walked the whole length of the Pier, but without seeing her again. All of her that he could now remember was the carriage of her head and her plain black dress, and he knew that dress, in this extraordinary raising of the standard of dressing which implies the possession by almost everybody of two dresses at least, was an uncertain guide. Another rattle of hand-clapping broke out as Percy Briggs and John Willie passed the turnstiles. "Any good looking in there?" Percy asked, nodding towards the Concert Hall, but John Willie made no reply. He was as cross as a bear with a sore head. Twice already he had rounded on Percy, who had proposed drinks at this place or that, and had snapped "You go if you want--I'm not keeping you;" but Percy had replied good-naturedly, "Oh, all right, keep your hair on." The sounds of two more pairs of heels were added to the drub-drubbing on the planks of the Pier. It seemed idle to seek, but John Willie stood looking in at the glass sides of the Pavilion at the pier-head, searching the bright and crowded interior. His mind was as obstinately set as that of a mule. It seemed to him idiotic that all those rows and rows of people should clap the inanities of the young man in knee-breeched evening-dress who strutted and made painted eyes over the top of a flattened opera-hat, or encore Miss Sal Volatile, all spidery black silk stockings below and cocksfeather boa and enormous black halfmoon hat above. John Willie turned away to the low-burning crimson pier-light. He stood there for some moments, and then began to stride back the length of the Pier again. "Chucking it?" said Percy, half sympathetic, half "getting at" John Willie. "Come on to the Kursaal," John Willie grunted.