In order more thoroughly to amuse herself with the captain’s astonishment, she made a long pause.  Then she added: 

“I saw your name on the list of arrivals yesterday, on my return to the hotel.  I always look them over.  It pleases me to know who my neighbors are.”

“And for that reason you did not come down to the dining-room?...”

Ulysses asked this question hoping that she would respond negatively.  She could not answer it in any other way, if only for good manners’ sake.

“Yes, for that reason,” Freya replied simply.  “I guessed that you were waiting to meet me and I did not wish to go into the dining-room....  I give you fair warning that I shall always do the same.”

Ulysses uttered an “Ah!” of amazement....  No woman had ever spoken to him with such frankness.

“Neither has your presence here surprised me,” she continued.  “I was expecting it.  I know the innocent wiles of you men.  ’Since he did not find me in the hotel, he will wait for me to-day in the street,’ I said to myself, upon arising this morning....  Before coming out, I was following your footsteps from the window of my room....”

Ferragut looked at her in surprise and dismay.  What a woman!...

“I might have escaped through any cross street while your back was turned.  I saw you before you saw me....  But these false situations stretching along indefinitely are distasteful to me.  It is better to speak the entire truth face to face....  And therefore I have come to meet you....”

Instinct made him turn his head toward the hotel.  The porter was standing at the entrance looking out over the sea, but with his eyes undoubtedly turned toward them.

“Let us go on,” said Freya.  “Accompany me a little ways.  We shall talk together and then you can leave me....  Perhaps we shall separate greater friends than ever.”

They strolled in silence all the length of the Via Partenope until they reached the gardens along the beach of Chiaja, losing sight of the hotel.  Ferragut wished to renew the conversation, but could not begin it.  He feared to appear ridiculous.  This woman was making him timid.

Looking at her with admiring eyes, he noted the great changes that had been made in the adornment of her person.  She was no longer clad in the dark tailor-made in which he had first seen her.  She was wearing a blue and white silk gown with a handsome fur over her shoulders and a cluster of purple heron feathers on top of her wide hat.

The black hand-bag that had always accompanied her on her journeys had been replaced by a gold-meshed one of showy richness,—­Australian gold of a greenish tone like an overlay of Florentine bronze.  In her ears were two great, thick emeralds, and on her fingers a half dozen diamonds whose facets twinkled in the sunlight.  The pearl necklace was still on her neck peeping out through the V-shaped opening of her gown.  It was the magnificent toilet of a rich actress who puts everything on herself,—­of one so enamored with jewels that she is not able to live without their contact, adorning herself with them the minute she is out of bed, regardless of the hour and the rules of good taste.