turbed the little man's equilibrium. He was
naturally very prim, and prim folk live mostly in so small a world that
anything violently unusual may shake them clean out of it, and they
therefore instinctively distrust originality. But Vezin began to forget
his primness after awhile. The girl was always modestly behaved, and as
her mother's representative she naturally had to do with the guests in
the hotel. It was not out of the way that a spirit of camaraderie should
spring up. Besides, she was young, she was charmingly pretty, she was
French, and--she obviously liked him.

At the same time, there was something indescribable--a certain
indefinable atmosphere of other places, other times--that made him try
hard to remain on his guard, and sometimes made him catch his breath
with a sudden start. It was all rather like a delirious dream, half
delight, half dread, he confided in a whisper to Dr. Silence; and more
than once he hardly knew quite what he was doing or saying, as though he
were driven forward by impulses he scarcely recognised as his own.

And though the thought of leaving presented itself again and again to
his mind, it was each time with less insistence, so that he stayed on
from day to day, becoming more and more a part of the sleepy life of
this dreamy mediaeval town, losing more and more of his recognisable
personality. Soon, he felt, the Curtain within would roll up with an
awful rush, and he would find himself suddenly admitted into the secret
purposes of the hidden life that lay behind it all. Only, by that time,
he would have become transformed into an entirely different being.

And, meanwhile, he noticed various little signs of the intention to
make his stay attractive to him: flowers in his bedroom, a more
comfortable arm-chair in the corner, and even special little extra
dishes on his private table in the dining-room. Conversations, too, with
"Mademoiselle Ilse" became more and more frequent and pleasant, and
although they seldom travelled beyond the weather, or the details of the
town, the girl, he noticed, was never in a hurry to bring them to an
end, and often contrived to interject little odd sentences that he never
properly understood, yet felt to be significant.

And it was these stray remarks, full of a meaning that evaded him, that
pointed to some hidden purpose of her own and made him feel uneasy. They
all had to do, he felt sure, with reasons for his staying on in the town
indefinitely.