"Listen," she said; "I can tell you something of your history, as you
will see. I want you to fill in the blanks."

"Mine," he murmured, "will be the greater task. My life is a record of
blank places. The history is to come."

"This," she said, "is the extent of my knowledge. You were the second
son of Sir Lionel Matravers, and you have been an orphan since you
were very young. You were meant to take Holy Orders, but when the time
came you declined. At Oxford you did very well indeed. You established
a brilliant reputation as a classical scholar, and you became a
fellow of St. John's.

"It was whilst you were there that you wrote _Studies in Character_.
Two years ago, I do not know why, you gave up your fellowship and came
to London. You took up the editorship of a Review--the _Bi-Weekly_, I
think--but you resigned it on a matter of principle. You have a
somewhat curious reputation. The _Scrutineer_ invariably alludes to
you as the Apostle of AEstheticism. You are reported to have fixed
views as to the conduct of life, down even to its most trifling
details. That sounds unpleasant, but it probably isn't altogether
true.... Don't interrupt, please! You have no intimate friends, but
you go sometimes into society. You are apparently a mixture of poet,
philosopher, and man of fashion. I have heard you spoken of more than
once as a disciple of Epicurus. You also, in the course of your
literary work, review novels--unfortunately for me--and six months ago
you were the cause of my nearly crying my eyes out. It was perhaps
silly of me to attempt, without any literary experience, to write a
modern story, but my own life supplied the motive, and at least I was
faithful to what I felt and knew. No one else has ever said such cruel
things about my work.

"Woman-like, you see, I repay my injuries by becoming interested in
you. If you had praised my book, I daresay I should never have thought
of you at all. Then there is one thing more. Every day you sit in the
Park close to where I stop, and--you look at me. It seems as though we
had often spoken there. Shall I tell you what I have been vain enough
to think sometimes?

"I have watched you from a distance, often before you have seen me.
You always sit in the same attitude, your eyebrows are a little
contracted, there is generally the ghost of a smile upon your lips.
You are like an outsider who has come to look upon a brilliant show. I
could fancy that you have clothed yourself