Miss Devine, having made up her mind that the thing had got to be done, was anxious that it should be done quickly. And here it was that the stranger’s ridiculous opinion of her not only irritated but inconvenienced her. Under the very eyes of a person--however foolish--convinced that you are possessed of all the highest attributes of your sex, it is difficult to behave as though actuated by only the basest motives. A dozen times had Miss Devine determined to end the matter by formal acceptance of her elderly admirer’s large and flabby hand, and a dozen times--the vision intervening of the stranger’s grave, believing eyes--had Miss Devine refused decided answer. The stranger would one day depart. Indeed, he had told her himself, he was but a passing traveller. When he was gone it would be easier. So she thought at the time. One afternoon the stranger entered the room where she was standing by the window, looking out upon the bare branches of the trees in Bloomsbury Square. She remembered afterwards, it was just such another foggy afternoon as the afternoon of the stranger’s arrival three months before. No one else was in the room. The stranger closed the door, and came towards her with that curious, quick-leaping step of his. His long coat was tightly buttoned, and in his hands he carried his old felt hat and the massive knotted stick that was almost a staff. “I have come to say good-bye,” explained the stranger. “I am going.” “I shall not see you again?” asked the girl. “I cannot say,” replied the stranger. “But you will think of me?” “Yes,” she answered with a smile, “I can promise that.” “And I shall always remember you,” promised the stranger, “and I wish you every joy--the joy of love, the joy of a happy marriage.” The girl winced. “Love and marriage are not always the same thing,” she said. “Not always,” agreed the stranger, “but in your case they will be one.” She looked at him. “Do you think I have not noticed?” smiled the stranger, “a gallant, handsome lad, and clever. You love him and he loves you. I could not have gone away without knowing it was well with you.” Her gaze wandered towards the fading light. “Ah, yes, I love him,” she answered petulantly. “Your eyes can see clearly enough, when they want to. But one does not live on love, in our world. I will tell you the man I am going to marry if you care to know.” She would not meet his eyes. She kept her gaze still fixed upon the dingy trees, the mist beyond, and spoke rapidly and vehemently: “The man who can give me all my soul’s desire--money and the things that money can buy. You think me a woman, I’m only a pig. He is moist, and breathes like a porpoise; with cunning in place of a brain, and the rest of him mere stomach. But he is good enough for me.” She hoped this would shock the stranger and that now, perhaps, he would go. It irritated her to hear him only laugh. “No,” he said, “you will not marry him.” “Who will stop me?” she cried angrily.