accidental, compared with this deep deliberate
imprint of her soul on his.

Yet now it had become suddenly different. Now that he was in the same
place with her, and might at any moment run across her, meet her eyes,
hear her voice, avoid her hand--now that penetrating ghost of her
with which he had been living was sucked back into the shadows, and
he seemed, for the first time since their parting, to be again in her
actual presence. He woke to the fact on the morning of his arrival,
staring down from his hotel window on a street she would perhaps walk
through that very day, and over a limitless huddle of roofs, one
of which covered her at that hour. The abruptness of the transition
startled him; he had not known that her mere geographical nearness would
take him by the throat in that way. What would it be, then, if she were
to walk into the room?

Thank heaven that need never happen! He was sufficiently informed as
to French divorce proceedings to know that they would not necessitate
a confrontation with his wife; and with ordinary luck, and some
precautions, he might escape even a distant glimpse of her. He did not
mean to remain in Paris more than a few days; and during that time it
would be easy--knowing, as he did, her tastes and Altringham's--to avoid
the places where she was likely to be met. He did not know where she was
living, but imagined her to be staying with Mrs. Melrose, or some other
rich friend, or else lodged, in prospective affluence, at the Nouveau
Luxe, or in a pretty flat of her own. Trust Susy--ah, the pang of it--to
"manage"!

His first visit was to his lawyer's; and as he walked through the
familiar streets each approaching face, each distant figure seemed
hers. The obsession was intolerable. It would not last, of course; but
meanwhile he had the exposed sense of a fugitive in a nightmare, who
feels himself the only creature visible in a ghostly and besetting
multitude. The eye of the metropolis seemed fixed on him in an immense
unblinking stare.

At the lawyer's he was told that, as a first step to freedom, he must
secure a domicile in Paris. He had of course known of this necessity: he
had seen too many friends through the Divorce Court, in one country
or another, not to be fairly familiar with the procedure. But the fact
presented a different aspect as soon as he tried to relate it to himself
and Susy: it was as though Susy's personality were a medium through
which events still took on a