“I could hardly have talked to her about anything but her plight. It was a week or two before I talked to her at all; but, in the end, I found that if I wanted to continue to come to the villa, I should have to brave that presence on the parapet--domesticate myself in that pervasive and most logical gloom. So I did. She was a positive creature; there wasn’t the faintest hint of apology or deprecation in her manner. She would see you on business, and only on business--the business being her tragedy. Don’t misunderstand--” (Chalmers frowned a little as he looked at me.) “She was neither lachrymose nor hard; she was just infinitely and quite decently preoccupied with her one desire and her helplessness to achieve it. She didn’t magnify herself. It isn’t magnifying yourself to want a proper funeral for the person you love, is it? She was even grateful for sympathy, though she didn’t want a stream of words poured out over her. She--she was an awfully good sort.” Chalmers dug his cigarette-end almost viciously into the tray, and watched the smoke go out. We both watched the smoke go out.... “Before long, we had talked together a good deal, especially during the hour before dinner, when the sun and the sea were so miraculous that any other miracle seemed possible. Such easy waters to cross, they looked, in the sunset light! You forgot the blistering leagues beyond; you forgot that it took money and men and courage and endurance, and all kinds of things that are hard to come by, to get to the goal she was straining for. I suppose it wouldn’t be honest to say that she ever passed her personal fervor on to me--I couldn’t, in the nature of things, care so much about recovering that poor chap’s bones as she did--but I did end by wishing with all my heart that I could help. Little by little it seemed a romantic thing to do--to go out searching for the spot where he had died. Of course, getting the bones themselves, except for extraordinary luck, was all moonshine; but she didn’t see that, and her blindness affected me. Finally, my _wanderjahr_ began to shape itself to new horizons. Why shouldn’t I have a try?... I dare say I posed a little as a paladin, though not, I hope, to her. Anyhow, I decided to broach it.