I was glad, then, that I had never allowed my portrait to appear in a periodical.  We could not prevent the appearance in American newspapers of heralding paragraphs, but the likelihood of our being recognised was sensibly lessened.

‘Can you start soon?’ he asked.  ‘Can you be ready?’

‘Any time.  The sooner the better, now that it is decided.’

’You do not regret?  We have decided so quickly.  Ah! you are the merest girl, and I have taken advantage—­’

I put my hand over his mouth.  He seized it, and kept it there and kissed it, and his ardent breath ran through my fingers.

‘What about your business?’ I said.

’I shall confide it to old Tate—­tell him some story—­he knows quite as much about it as I do.  To-morrow I will see to all that.  The day after, shall we start?  No; to-morrow night.  To-morrow night, eh?  I’ll run in to-morrow and tell you what I’ve arranged.  I must see you to-morrow, early.’

‘No,’ I said.  ‘Do not come before lunch.’

‘Not before lunch!  Why?’

He was surprised.  But I had been my own mistress for five years, with my own habits, rules, privacies.  I had never seen anyone before lunch.  And to-morrow, of all days, I should have so much to do and to arrange.  Was this man to come like an invader and disturb my morning?  So felt the celibate in me, instinctively, thoughtlessly.  That deep-seated objection to the intrusion of even the most loved male at certain times is common, I think, to all women.  Women are capable of putting love aside, like a rich dress, and donning the peignoir of matter-of-fact dailiness, in a way which is an eternal enigma to men....  Then I saw, in a sudden flash, that I had renounced my individual existence, that I had forfeited my habits and rules, and privacies, that I was a man’s woman.  And the passionate lover in me gloried in this.

‘Come as soon as you like, dearest friend,’ I said.

‘Nobody except Mary will know anything till we are actually gone,’ he remarked.  ’And I shall not tell her till the last thing.  Afterwards, won’t they chatter!  God!  Let ’em.’

‘They are already chattering,’ I said.  And I told him about Mrs. Sardis.  ‘When she met you on the landing,’ I added, ’she drew her own conclusions, my poor, poor boy!’

He was furious.  I could see he wanted to take me in his arms and protect me masculinely from the rising storm.

‘All that is nothing,’ I soothed him.  ’Nothing.  Against it, we have our self-respect.  We can scorn all that.’  And I gave a short, contemptuous laugh.

‘Darling!’ he murmured.  ‘You are more than a woman.’

‘I hope not.’  And I laughed again, but unnaturally.