"I saw you ten minutes ago," he declared, "and since then I have been endeavouring to make myself an acceptable travelling companion. But don't begin to study the fashions yet, please. Tell me how it is that after looking all over London for three days for you, I find you here." "It is the unexpected," she remarked, "which always happens. But after all there is nothing mysterious about it. I am going down to a little house which my uncle has taken, somewhere near Cromer. You will think it odd, I suppose, considering his deformity, but he is devoted to golf, and some one has been telling him that Norfolk is the proper county to go to." "And you?" he asked. She shook her head disconsolately. "I am afraid I am not English enough to care much for games," she admitted. "I like riding and archery, and I used to shoot a little, but to go into the country at this time of the year to play any game seems to me positively barbarous. London is quite dull enough--but the country--and the English country, too!--well, I have been engrossed in self-pity ever since my uncle announced his plans." "I do not imagine," he said smiling, "that you care very much for England." "I do not imagine," she admitted promptly, "that I do. I am a Frenchwoman, you see, and to me there is no city on earth like Paris, and no country like my own." "The women of your nation," he remarked, "are always patriotic. I have never met a Frenchwoman who cared for England." "We have reason to be patriotic," she said, "or rather, we had," she added, with a curious note of sadness in her tone. "But, come, I do not desire to talk about my country. I admitted you here to be an entertaining companion, and you have made me speak already of the subject which is to me the most mournful in the world. I do not wish to talk any more about France. Will you please think of another subject?" "Mr. Sabin is not with you," he remarked. "He intended to come. Something important kept him at the last moment. He will follow me, perhaps, by a later train to-day, if not to-morrow." "It is certainly a coincidence," he said, "that you should be going to Cromer. My home is quite near there." "And you are going there now?" she asked. "I am delighted to say that I am." "You did not mention it the other evening," she remarked. "You talked as though you had no intention at all of leaving London." "Neither had I at that time," he said. "I had a letter from home this morning which decided me." She smiled softly. "Well, it is strange," she said. "On the whole, it is perhaps fortunate that you did not contemplate this journey when we had supper together the other night." He caught at her meaning, and laughed. "It is more than fortunate," he declared. "If I had known of it, and told Mr. Sabin, you would not have been travelling by this train alone." "I certainly should not," she admitted demurely. He saw his opportunity, and swiftly availed himself of it.