“Which way are you going?” she asked.

“I am going to walk to Dover,” I answered.

“And I may come with you?”

I looked at her—­intent on divining her in that one glance.  It was of course impossible.  “There will be time for analysis,” I thought.

“The roads are free to all,” I said.  “You are not an American?”

She shook her head.  No.  She was not an Australian either, she came from none of the British colonies.

“You are not English,” I affirmed.  “You speak too well.”  I was piqued.  She did not answer.  She smiled again and I grew angry.  In the cathedral she had smiled at the verger’s commendation of particularly abominable restorations, and that smile had drawn me toward her, had emboldened me to offer deferential and condemnatory remarks as to the plaster-of-Paris mouldings.  You know how one addresses a young lady who is obviously capable of taking care of herself.  That was how I had come across her.  She had smiled at the gabble of the cathedral guide as he showed the obsessed troop, of which we had formed units, the place of martyrdom of Blessed Thomas, and her smile had had just that quality of superseder’s contempt.  It had pleased me then; but, now that she smiled thus past me—­it was not quite at me—­in the crooked highways of the town, I was irritated.  After all, I was somebody; I was not a cathedral verger.  I had a fancy for myself in those days—­a fancy that solitude and brooding had crystallised into a habit of mind.  I was a writer with high—­with the highest—­ideals.  I had withdrawn myself from the world, lived isolated, hidden in the countryside, lived as hermits do, on the hope of one day doing something—­of putting greatness on paper.  She suddenly fathomed my thoughts:  “You write,” she affirmed.  I asked how she knew, wondered what she had read of mine—­there was so little.

“Are you a popular author?” she asked.

“Alas, no!” I answered.  “You must know that.”

“You would like to be?”

“We should all of us like,” I answered; “though it is true some of us protest that we aim for higher things.”

“I see,” she said, musingly.  As far as I could tell she was coming to some decision.  With an instinctive dislike to any such proceeding as regarded myself, I tried to cut across her unknown thoughts.

“But, really—­” I said, “I am quite a commonplace topic.  Let us talk about yourself.  Where do you come from?”

It occurred to me again that I was intensely unacquainted with her type.  Here was the same smile—­as far as I could see, exactly the same smile.  There are fine shades in smiles as in laughs, as in tones of voice.  I seemed unable to hold my tongue.

“Where do you come from?” I asked.  “You must belong to one of the new nations.  You are a foreigner, I’ll swear, because you have such a fine contempt for us.  You irritate me so that you might almost be a Prussian.  But it is obvious that you are of a new nation that is beginning to find itself.”