Conversation was rather easier coming back, perhaps because I felt in higher spirits and could play my absurd part with more gusto. Still, the girl remained a little disquieting. She was now in a very smiling and friendly mood, and a man who blinked through gold rimmed glasses and giggled through a dyed beard ought to have felt exceedingly flattered. But now I was saying to myself that for a girl of fastidious taste she was really too nice to such a fellow. And then I remembered that O'Brien had a black beard too, and the thought struck me, "Can she have such pleasant recollections of black beards that I am providing her with reminiscent romance?" I think it was just as this idea occurred to me that she roused me very sharply from my meditations. "I suppose you have heard of the mysterious man who appeared here last summer?" she enquired. It took Mr. Hobhouse all this time to adjust himself to this question, but I think he managed it not unsuccessfully. "The--ah? Oh, yes, oh, yes. The doctor told me the story. Most mysterious--most mysterious! What do you make of it yourself, Miss Rendall?" "Did the doctor tell you that I once walked with him along this very shore? It was at night too, and he was armed with a pistol!" A single stare of astonishment was fortunately able to cover two emotions. My own was expressed in the thought, "What the devil is she driving at now?" Mr. Hobhouse's was expressed otherwise. "You don't say so! God bless me; what a risk to run! He didn't--er--shoot at you, I hope?" "No," she said, "he seemed pretty harmless." "Ah, but you shouldn't run such risks, my dear young lady; you really shouldn't! Now I remember a young lady whom I used to know--" And thereupon Mr. Hobhouse launched into an improbable anecdote which tried his inventive powers considerably. However, he was able to make it, and the comments thereupon lasted till they were back at the house. The fact was that my hardihood was not quite sufficient to stand a conversation about my own self behind my own back. It might have been amusing, and it might have been instructive, but it would certainly have been embarrassing. However the incident served to reassure me that whatever she suspected me of (and I could not get that sense of being watched out of my head), it was not the correct suspicion. Had she guessed the truth I could see no point at all in her reminiscence of the mysterious stranger, unless it were sheer pointless mischief, and she did not seem a pointless lady. Besides, when I glanced at myself in the drawing room mirror, I said to myself, "Who could possibly guess!" After that walk, tea and a talk with her father were unexciting episodes. She kept very much in the background, but when we parted I seemed to note again that flicker of a very alluring smile.