fin," and then went up to my rooms for a
little quiet. I might have been there an hour, smoking and dreaming over
a book, when the servant announced a sahib who wanted to see me, and
Isaacs walked in, redolent of the sunshine without, his luminous eyes
shining brightly in the darkened room. I was delighted, for I felt my
wits stagnating in the unwonted idleness of the autumn afternoon, and
the book I had taken up was not conducive to wakefulness or brilliancy.
It was a pleasant surprise too. It is not often that an hotel
acquaintance pushes an intimacy much, and besides I had feared my
silence during the previous evening might have produced the impression
of indifference, on which reflection I had resolved to make myself
agreeable at our next meeting.

Truly, had I asked myself the cause of a certain attraction I felt for
Mr. Isaacs, it would have been hard to find an answer. I am generally
extremely shy of persons who begin an acquaintance by making
confidences, and, in spite of Isaacs' charm of manner, I had certainly
speculated on his reasons for suddenly telling an entire stranger his
whole story. My southern birth had not modified the northern character
born in me, though it gave me the more urbane veneer of the Italian; and
the early study of Larochefoucauld and his school had not predisposed me
to an unlimited belief in the disinterestedness of mankind. Still there
was something about the man which seemed to sweep away unbelief and
cynicism and petty distrust, as the bright mountain freshet sweeps away
the wretched little mud puddles and the dust and impurities from the bed
of a half dry stream. It was a new sensation and a novel era in my
experience of humanity, and the desire to get behind that noble
forehead, and see its inmost workings, was strong beyond the strength of
puny doubts and preconceived prejudice. Therefore, when Isaacs appeared,
looking like the sun-god for all his quiet dress of gray and his
unobtrusive manner, I felt the "little thrill of pleasure" so aptly
compared by Swinburne to the soft touch of a hand stroking the outer
hair.

"What a glorious day after all that detestable rain!" were his first
words. "Three mortal months of water, mud, and Mackintoshes, not to
mention the agreeable sensation of being glued to a wet saddle with your
feet in water-buckets, and mountain torrents running up and down the
inside of your sleeves, in defiance of the laws of gravitation; such is
life in the mons