He looked at her with an artist’s sudden, critical, estimating eye.

‘You are beautiful,’ he said, ‘and I am glad of it. But it isn’t that — it isn’t that,’ he cried, with emphasis that flattered her. ‘It is that you have a certain wit, it is the kind of understanding. For me, I am little, chetif, insignificant. Good! Do not ask me to be strong and handsome, then. But it is the ME — ’ he put his fingers to his mouth, oddly — ’it is the ME that is looking for a mistress, and my ME is waiting for the THEE of the mistress, for the match to my particular intelligence. You understand?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I understand.’

‘As for the other, this amour — ’