as alone. In the
world of Art she had many friends, and in the world of Art she meant to
make her mark. For the present she was content to make the tea, and then
to set feet on the fender for a cosy evening.

"Did you see him coming out of church?" Nina asked next day. "He looked
sulkier than ever."

"I can't think why you bother about him," said the other girl. "He's not
really interesting. What do you call him?"

"Nothing."

"Why, everything has a name, even a pudding. _I_ made a name for him at
once. It is 'the stranger who might have been observed----'"

They laughed. After the early dinner they went for a walk. None of your
strolls, but a good steady eight miles. Coming home, they met the
stranger: and then they talked about him again. For, fair reader, I
cannot conceal from you that there are many girls who do think and talk
about young men, even when they have not been introduced to them. Not
really nice girls like yourself, fair reader--but ordinary, commonplace
girls who have not your delicate natures, and who really do sometimes
experience a fleeting sensation of interest even in the people whose
names they don't know.

Next morning they saw him at the station. The 9.1 took the bit in its
teeth, and instead of being, as usual, the 9.30 something, became merely
the 9.23. So for some twenty odd minutes the stranger not only might
have been, but was, observed by four bright and critical eyes. I don't
mean that my girls stared, of course. Perhaps you do not know that there
are ways of observing strangers other than by the stare direct. He
looked sulkier than ever: but he also had eyes. Yet he, too, was far
from staring, so far that the indignant Nina broke out in a distracted
whisper: "There! you see! I'm not important enough for him even to
perceive my existence. I'm always expecting him to walk on me. I wonder
whether he'd apologise when he found I wasn't the station door-mat?"

The stranger shrugged his shoulders all to himself in his second-class
carriage when the train had started.

"'Simply detestable!' But how one talks prose without knowing it, all
along the line! How can I ever have come enough into her line of vision
to be distinguished by an epithet! And why this one? Detestable!"

The epithet, however distinguishing, seemed somehow to lack charm.

At Cannon Street Station the stranger looked sulkier than Nina had ever
seen him. She said so, adding: "Than I've ever seen him? Oh--I'm
wanderin