At the Hotel d’Angleterre I found his shyness was mistaken for indifference.  He was civil to everybody, but intimate with none.  He attached himself to no party, paired off with no individuals.  He sought nobody.  On the other hand, the persons who went out of their way to seek him, came back, as they felt, repulsed.  He had been polite, but languid.  These, however, were not the sort of persons he would be likely to care for.  There prevailed a general conception of him as cold, unsociable.  He certainly walked about a good deal alone—­you met him on the sands, on the cliffs, in the stiff little streets, rambling aimlessly, seldom with a companion.  But to me it was patent that he played the solitary from necessity, not from choice—­from the necessity of his temperament.  A companion was precisely that which above all things his heart coveted; only he didn’t know how to set about annexing one.  If he sought nobody, it was because he didn’t know how.  This was a part of what his eyes said; they bespoke his desire, his perplexity, his lack of nerve.  Of the people who put themselves out to seek him, there was Miss Hicks; there were a family from Leeds, named Bunn, a father, mother, son, and two redoubtable daughters, who drank champagne with every meal, dressed in the height of fashion, said their say at the tops of their voices, and were understood to be auctioneers; a family from Bayswater named Krausskopf.  I was among those whom he had marked as men he would like to fraternise with.  As often as our paths crossed, his eyes told me that he longed to stop and speak, and continue the promenade abreast.  I was under the control of a demon of mischief; I took a malicious pleasure in eluding and baffling him—­in passing on with a nod.  It had become a kind of game; I was curious to see whether he would ever develop sufficient hardihood to take the bull by the horns.  After all, from a conventional point of view, my conduct was quite justifiable.  I always meant to do better by him next time, and then I always deferred it to the next.  But, from a conventional point of view, my conduct was quite unassailable.  I said this to myself when I had momentary qualms of conscience.  Now, rather late in the day, it strikes me that the conventional point of view should have been re-adjusted to the special case.  I should have allowed for his personal equation.

My cousin Wilford came to Biarritz about this time, stopping for a week, on his way home from a tour in Spain.  I couldn’t find a room for him at the Hotel d’Angleterre, so he put up at a rival hostelry over the way; but he dined with me on the evening of his arrival, a place being made for him between mine and Monsieur’s.  He hadn’t been at the table five minutes before the rumour went abroad who he was—­somebody had recognised him.  Then those who were within reach of his voice listened with all their ears—­Colonel Escott, Flaherty, Maistre, and Miss Hicks, of course, who even called him by name:  ’Oh, Mr. Wilford,’