aid of your
first impression. After all, one has to fall back on that word.
Impression! What I mean is that something indescribable which is likely
to mark a 'not ordinary' person."

I perceived that she was not listening. There was no mistaking her
expression; and once more I had the sense of being out of it--not
because of my age, which at any rate could draw inferences--but
altogether out of it, on another plane whence I could only watch her
from afar. And so ceasing to speak I watched her stepping out by my
side.

"No," she exclaimed suddenly, "I could not have been disappointed with a
man of such strong feeling."

"Aha! Strong feeling," I muttered, thinking to myself censoriously: like
this, at once, all in a moment!

"What did you say?" inquired Miss Haldin innocently.

"Oh, nothing. I beg your pardon. Strong feeling. I am not surprised."

"And you don't know how abruptly I behaved to him!" she cried
remorsefully.

I suppose I must have appeared surprised, for, looking at me with a
still more heightened colour, she said she was ashamed to admit that she
had not been sufficiently collected; she had failed to control her words
and actions as the situation demanded. She lost the fortitude worthy of
both the men, the dead and the living; the fortitude which should have
been the note of the meeting of Victor Haldin's sister with Victor
Haldin's only known friend. He was looking at her keenly, but said
nothing, and she was--she confessed--painfully affected by his want of
comprehension. All she could say was: "You are Mr. Razumov." A slight
frown passed over his forehead. After a short, watchful pause, he made a
little bow of assent, and waited.

At the thought that she had before her the man so highly regarded by her
brother, the man who had known his value, spoken to him, understood him,
had listened to his confidences, perhaps had encouraged him--her lips
trembled, her eyes ran full of tears; she put out her hand, made a step
towards him impulsively, saying with an effort to restrain her emotion,
"Can't you guess who I am?" He did not take the proffered hand. He
even recoiled a pace, and Miss Haldin imagined that he was unpleasantly
affected. Miss Haldin excused him, directing her displeasure at
herself. She had behaved unworthily, like an emotional French girl.
A manifestation of that kind could not be welcomed by a man of stern,
self-contained character.

He must have been stern indeed, or perhaps very