Here I began to be aware of the imminence of another problem. I don't mean the talking French; I mean the whole problem of his company. He was going into Dinard to buy colours, and I also was returning to Dinard. The natural thing was that we should go together. I could hardly constitute myself his guardian and not be seen about with him--bargain with him that he only came to me or I to him like Nicodemus, by night. He seemed to take all this cheerfully for granted. But whither would it presently lead? Dinard was, in a word, the world--that world in which he had no place. Everybody knew scores of people in Dinard, and Madge Aird hundreds. Tennis, tea, the shops, the plage--all was public, familiar, open in the last degree. Within a couple of days, on the strength of being seen twice or thrice with me, he would be exchanging bows and smiles and "Bonjours" with goodness knows who. "Well, come along," I said in a sort of daze. "But I don't know that I feel like talking much, either in French or English. You're a devil of a fellow for keeping your friends guessing, Monsieur Arnaud. You're still Monsieur Arnaud, I suppose?" "How can I change it?" he replied gravely. Of course he couldn't change it. Arnaud he must remain until he became too young to be Arnaud any longer. On the returning tram I addressed myself somewhat as follows: "George Coverham, this can't go on. You've got to make up your mind one way or the other. If you don't he'll make it up for you. His is already made up. He sees no reason why he shouldn't carry on. He's either right or wrong. Well, suppose for a moment that he's right? What then? "You know what you were prepared for when you went up those stairs of his. You know you had to put your hand up three times before you dared knock. Well, everything was all right; nothing had happened. If he's really suddenly and desperately in love it ought to have happened, but anyway it didn't. That means, in plain English, that he knows more about himself than you do. "And he thinks he can stay as he is. Suppose he can? Suppose even that maddest conjecture of all is true, and that he actually may re-become normal and live out his life like everybody else? It wouldn't be any more wonderful than the rest. So what's the obvious thing to do? Why, simply to take him as he is--as long as he is it. That's all he's asking you. And he's promised to clear out at the very first hint of another transformation. In fact he's got to. It's in the very nature of the case.