you possibly
have heard of me! I thought myself so insignificant that my presence
in this great city would not be known to any one."

"You are too modest," said Browne, with a solemnity that would not have
discredited a State secret. Then he made haste to add, "I cannot tell
you how often I have thought of that terrible afternoon."

"As you may suppose, I have never forgotten it," she answered. "It is
scarcely likely I should."

There was a little pause; then she added, "But I don't know why I
should keep you standing out here like this. Will you not come in?"

Browne was only too glad to do so. He accordingly followed her into
the large and luxuriously furnished studio.

"Won't you sit down?" she said, pointing to a chair by the fire. "It
is so cold and foggy outside that perhaps you would like a cup of tea."

Tea was a beverage in which Browne never indulged, and yet, on this
occasion, so little was he responsible for his actions that he
acquiesced without a second thought.

"How do you prefer it?" she asked. "Will you have it made in the
English or the Russian way? Here is a teapot, and here a samovar; here
is milk, and here a slice of lemon. Which do you prefer?"

Scarcely knowing which he chose, Browne answered that he would take it
_a la Russe_. She thereupon set to work, and the young man, as he
watched her bending over the table, thought he had never in his life
before seen so beautiful and so desirable a woman. And yet, had a
female critic been present, it is quite possible--nay, it is almost
probable that more than one hole might have been picked in her
appearance. Her skirt--in order to show my knowledge of the
technicalities of woman's attire--was of plain merino, and she also
wore a painting blouse that, like Joseph's coat, was of many colours.
To go further, a detractor would probably have observed that her hair
might have been better arranged. Browne, however, thought her
perfection in every respect, and drank his tea in a whirl of
enchantment. He found an inexplicable fascination in the mere swish of
her skirts as she moved about the room, and a pleasure that he had
never known before in the movement of her slender hands above the tray.
And when, their tea finished, she brought him a case of cigarettes, and
bade him smoke if he cared to, it might very well have been said that
that studio contained the happiest man in England. Outside, they could
hear the steady patter of the rain,