to a decision, he walked on. When he was abreast of her he raised his hat.

Esmé regarded him curiously. It was the man whose seat was next hers at table, the man whose personality had arrested her attention, in whom she felt unaccountably interested. He carried a stick, which he used occasionally to walk with and more frequently to strike with at the grass which bordered the roadside. He carried it as a man carries something from which he derives a sense of companionship. It was all the companionship he ever had upon his walks.

“Good-morning,” the girl said in response to his mute salutation; and added, after a barely perceptible pause: “It is glorious, the air up here.”

“Yes,” he said, and halted irresolutely.

She believed that he resented, not only her speaking to him, but her presence there. He resented neither; but he felt averse from beginning an acquaintance which, once started, it would be impossible to draw back from, and which he foresaw might develop into something of very deep significance. Instinctively he feared this acquaintance. But courtesy demanded some response from him; he made it reluctantly and in a manner which did not encourage her to persevere.

“You are an early riser,” he said. “Usually at this hour I have the day to myself.”

Again it seemed to her that he looked on her presence as an intrusion, that he preferred to take his rambles without the thought of encountering any one. An emotion that was a mixture of impatience and anger seized her at his selfishness.

“There is room for both of us,” she said with a touch of scorn in her voice. “And we travel in opposite directions.”

The man’s features relaxed in a smile, the first she had seen cross his face, an involuntary, whimsical smile. A gleam of understanding lit his eye.

“Yes,” he allowed briefly, and lifted his hat again, and walked on, leaving the girl with the feeling of having suffered a snub.

She looked after him, as he went on, still hitting aimlessly at the grass with his thick stick as he walked, until he rounded the bend and disappeared from her view. Then, dispirited and out of humour with the day, she left the shade of the trees and took her way upward and returned to the hotel.

At breakfast she saw the man again. He came in late, and dropped into his seat beside her with an air of weariness, as though he had walked far and was tired. She did not look at him; but she felt his gaze on her when he came behind her chair and drew his own chair back from the table. When he sat down he glanced at her deliberately. She went on with her breakfast and ignored his presence. Later, this struck her as unkind and somewhat childish. But it was not possible to make amends; the opportunity was past.

He sat, as he always sat at table, with his head bent over his plate in complete disregard of every one. But the presence of the girl beside him, her partly averted face, the nearness of a projecting elbow with its white, prettily rounded arm, forced themselves on his notice, made him intensely self-conscious. He put out a hand for the glass of milk and soda which stood beside his plate and lifted it unsteadily. The sight of his own shaking hand unnerved him, made him horribly and painfully alive to this ugly physical defect. Impatiently he jerked his arm upward; the glass tilted and the contents foamed over, ran down the cloth and on to the girl’s skirt. He fumbled awkwardly, almost dropped the glass in his agitation, righted it clumsily and turned, napkin in hand, his face crimson, and began to sop up the liquid.

“I’m awfully sorry,” he mumbled. “I can’t think how I came to do that. I’m sorry.”

Esmé turned quietly and watched him while with increasing embarrassment he timidly wiped her dress. In pity for him she put out a hand and took the napkin from him.

“Don’t trouble,” she said. “It’s nothing really.”

“I’ve spoilt your dress,” he said.

“Oh! no. It’s a frock on friendly terms with the wash-tub. That will be all right.”

“It’s kind of you to make light of it,” he said. “But I’m ashamed of my clumsiness.”

She felt intensely sorry for him as he turned again to his breakfast and resumed eating with a sort of uncomfortable shyness that was painful to witness. His hands, she noticed, shook more than usual. He did not attempt to lift his glass again, though it had been placed refilled before him; he was physically incapable of making the effort. Out of consideration for him she did not address him again, but finished her breakfast quickly and got up silently and left the room.

She went down the passage and into her own room and changed into a clean frock. It was her smartest dress which had been soiled. She took it off with a sorry little smile at the pang which it cost her vanity to have to lay it aside. But her earlier resentment against the man whose clumsiness had caused the mishap gave place to a deep compassion when she recalled the confused crimson of his face and the fierce yet diffident embarrassment in his eyes. She was sorry for him without understanding why she should feel pity for a man who made no appeal to her sympathy. His solitary condition was the result of his deliberate choice. When a man shuns the society of his fellows the fault lies within himself.

But the look in his eyes continued to distress her. She resolved that when next she encountered him she would make him talk to her.