Then he told himself he was a fool, that only by the unlikeliest chance would she be there to-day. He walked away, but was back again in ten minutes. In another twenty the door opened and the young woman came out. She stood for a moment at the gate. It could not be Cathleen, she was too tall and slender. In his eager hope and curiosity he moved toward her. He was not a yard away from her when she turned and their eyes met. Neither stirred. They were stilled by the wonder of it. A spell was on them, and slowly in both grew the dreadful knowledge that a word or a gesture would break it. In his heart René prayed: "Oh! let it break into happiness," and his will leaped into being and decided that it must be so and he laughed. She said: "Oh! René!" It was no echo of the old cry, but the same filled with a new music. Their hands met in the conventional salute. She said: "I have been thinking of you so much." "Much?" said he. "I have been thinking of nothing else. And I was not sure that it was you when you went in just now." "I saw you, but I didn't recognize you. Rachel told me she had met you." "Did she tell you where?" "I had to dig it out of her. She was very hushed and secret. Rachel is funny. I've been looking at taxi-drivers ever since. They are a very plain lot of men." "Where do you live now?" "In Bloomsbury. I am working for my living, you know." "I'm glad of that, but I shouldn't have thought it necessary." "My father died." "I heard that." "He left nearly all his money to another woman: another family. I suppose he liked them better than us. I had a row with my mother over it. It appears she knew all about it and never minded. Only when it came to her having less money than she thought, she developed a horrid conscience and denounced my father to us. I hadn't thought about such things, but I was fond of my father, and it wasn't fair to vilify him after his death. I didn't understand it in the very least, but I stood up for him, and of course I said a lot of stupid, cruel things. I went to see the other woman. She was quite old, older than mother, rather vulgar, but jolly and warm-hearted and kind, and, from the way she talked, I could see she really did love my father and was very proud of him. You know, he made his own way. His father was a barber in Rickham, in Hertfordshire. She came from there, too. I told mother I had seen her, and she was furious, and said I was too young to know anything about such things. I pointed out that she had told me, and she declared she never imagined that I would understand. Then she put it all down to my taste for low company, meaning you. That annoyed me, and I told her you were a very learned and brilliant person. She said Thrigsby wasn't a real university, and its degrees did not count. You weren't a gentleman, and it was terrible how all the professions were being invaded by little whipper-snappers with a thin coating of book knowledge.