"But I can only repeat her words to you barely and crudely. I can't hope to give you the tragic gesture of impotence in her voice, and the way her voice grew lighter and lighter until it seemed to become part of the air, as impalpable, as mysterious. And at the end her voice had died down to almost less than a whisper, her 'adieu' had fainted between her tongue and her lips, it was only a wisp of a dying word. It was strangely as though she were rehearsing something she might have to say sometime.... She was only rehearsing. I waited. "'Oh, but isn't that enough!' she almost cried, suddenly. 'Have I not done it quite, quite well, or do you want me to think of something else--something more ... more dramatic?' "'Please, please do make it easy for me, Don Noël--do go away, please!' she begged. 'This is so difficult, so much more difficult than I.... It is not a tragedy, this, remember! It is an incident, and the incident is finished, that's all. Don't please let me make a tragedy of it--by apologising! You see, my Noël, I am so weak, so weak. I feel such a bad woman, such a brute.... And you can never understand why, never.... Forgive me, and go!' "Her very last word was almost brutal in its defined meaning, it held no uncertainty; but I didn't move at that moment. I remembered that I did not know her name. "'A few moments ago, before you spoke, I had a dream,' I said. 'And in my dream I was told that you would tell me your name, the name that will explain the initials under the coronet on your hairbrushes. The adventure would not have been so complete without a coronet, so I looked to see if one was there, and behold! it was there. I am such a snob, I would like to know your name.... And then I would forget it.' "'That was a false dream,' she said. 'You will not know my name, you will not know where this house is, you will not know anything. Don Noël, you will be an English gentleman of the kind we find in books, you will not remember or know anything that I do not wish. You will not look at the number of the house, nor at the name of the street. That is my wish.' "She was quite, quite cold. Just like a woman who has had a love affair which has lasted an eternity but cannot outlast another second. How wise she was to let me see that--oh, well, anti-climax! She knew that men do not fall of their own accord from great heights down to Mother Earth, they must be pushed over--ever so gently, gently. "'It is getting light,' she murmured. "But as I rose she confessed her affectation; she threw her arms round my neck and brought my face close to hers. "'You fool man!' she said. 'Why do you hurt yourself and me? Why did you just say that this was an adventure? This has not been an adventure, it has been a love-affair.... And always remember that I asked you to forgive me. Always.'