‘Excuse me, but I said “This scarf found me”--therein lies a great difference.’ ‘It is all so trivial I wouldn’t forgive any man living but you.’ ‘Thank you.’ The scarf, floated by the breeze, caught on Rob’s shoulder; he drew it slowly down; it lengthened out with the gentle strain and fell in a misty heap to his knee. ‘Do put that cussed thing away,’ said Mark, irritably, ‘and tell me, if you are ever going to, where it came from.’ ‘I can tell you that better when I have found out myself.’ ‘Who is she?’ ‘She is a slender woman, neither dark nor light; her hair is fluffy--not crimped; her eyes are red-brown in some lights, and she wears soft raiment.’ ‘When did you meet her?’ ‘I haven’t met her yet.’ ‘And what about Mabel?’ ‘Oh, she is all right,’ said Rob, optimistically. ‘What I liked about her at first is exactly what I like now--she is so sensible; you can’t tell how sensible she is, Mark. She says I am preoccupied, and she doesn’t think I am earnest. She is right; I am not what she calls earnest.’ ‘You told her about the scarf, of course?’ ‘No, that wouldn’t interest her. Now, tenement houses are in her line. If I had invested in a tenement house she would have found me no end interesting; but this kind of a thing isn’t appreciated by her; she isn’t in it.’ ‘I call it puerile and ridiculous,’ said Mark, hotly. ‘I don’t think you are quite right, then. What kind of a fabric should you take it to be?’ Mark took it in his hand. Whatever he did, he did sincerely and with care. He held the scarf up to the light; he bent his head over it and scrutinized it through his glasses; then he sniffed at it to see if it had any perfume, and stretched the meshes to see if it were hand-woven. At last he said: ‘I don’t think I know anything about it. It is made of wool, not silk; it is all delicate as a cobweb, but it does not call to my mind any stuff I ever saw. I should say it might have come from the East, possibly from India or even from Greece--Milesian wool.’ ‘Yes, Milesian wool--it must be that,’ said Rob, enthusiastically. ‘You are not in earnest when you tell me you do not know anything more about it than I do?’ ‘I am in earnest, but I can’t say exactly that; and yet I know nothing about the scarf except how it came to me; you would call me practical, sane--not a dreamer?’