met my little
woman, as I believe it was, as I was returning towards my centre
from an exploration, and she received me with cries of delight and
presented me with a big garland of flowers--evidently made for me
and me alone. The thing took my imagination. Very possibly I had
been feeling desolate. At any rate I did my best to display my
appreciation of the gift. We were soon seated together in a little
stone arbour, engaged in conversation, chiefly of smiles. The
creature's friendliness affected me exactly as a child's might have
done. We passed each other flowers, and she kissed my hands. I did
the same to hers. Then I tried talk, and found that her name was
Weena, which, though I don't know what it meant, somehow seemed
appropriate enough. That was the beginning of a queer friendship
which lasted a week, and ended--as I will tell you!

'She was exactly like a child. She wanted to be with me always. She
tried to follow me everywhere, and on my next journey out and about
it went to my heart to tire her down, and leave her at last,
exhausted and calling after me rather plaintively. But the problems
of the world had to be mastered. I had not, I said to myself, come
into the future to carry on a miniature flirtation. Yet her distress
when I left her was very great, her expostulations at the parting
were sometimes frantic, and I think, altogether, I had as much
trouble as comfort from her devotion. Nevertheless she was, somehow,
a very great comfort. I thought it was mere childish affection that
made her cling to me. Until it was too late, I did not clearly know
what I had inflicted upon her when I left her. Nor until it was too
late did I clearly understand what she was to me. For, by merely
seeming fond of me, and showing in her weak, futile way that she
cared for me, the little doll of a creature presently gave my return
to the neighbourhood of the White Sphinx almost the feeling of
coming home; and I would watch for her tiny figure of white and gold
so soon as I came over the hill.

'It was from her, too, that I learned that fear had not yet left the
world. She was fearless enough in the daylight, and she had the
oddest confidence in me; for once, in a foolish moment, I made
threatening grimaces at her, and she simply laughed at them. But she
dreaded the dark, dreaded shadows, dreaded black things. Darkness
to her was the one thing dreadful. It was a singularly passionate
emotion, and it set me thinking and observi