“If I could only repeat what he says.... It’s thrilling, my dear friend. He tells me all sorts of things about the deep seas. I’ve always been particularly curious about creatures that live in the sea. You know that in America they make boats with glass let into the sides, so that you can go to the bottom of the sea and look all round you. They say that the sights are simply marvellous--live coral and ... and ... what do you call them?... madrepores, and sponges, and sea-weeds, and great shoals of fish. Vincent says that there are certain kinds of fish which die according as the water becomes more salt or less, and that there are others, on the contrary, which can live in any degree of salt water; and that they swim about on the edge of the currents, where the water becomes less salt, so as to prey on the others when their strength fails them. You ought to get him to talk to you about it.... I assure you it’s most curious. When he talks about things like that, he becomes extraordinary. You wouldn’t recognize him.... But you don’t know how to get him to talk.... It’s like when he tells me about his affair with Laura Douviers--yes, that’s her name.... Do you know how he got to know her?” “Did he tell you?” “People tell me everything. You know they do, you shocking creature!” And she stroked his face with the feathers of her closed fan. “Did you suspect that he had been to see me every single day since the evening you first brought him?” “Every day? No, really! I didn’t suspect that.” “On the fourth, he couldn’t resist any longer; he came out with the whole thing. But on every day following, he kept adding details.” “And it didn’t bore you? You’re a wonder!” “I told you, my dear, that I love him.” And she seized his arm emphatically. “And _he_ ... loves the other woman?” Lilian laughed.