I sat there, horribly disturbed; the words, “One must try to be a gentleman!” haunting me.  When I came out, he was standing by the entrance with one hand on his hip and the other on his dog.  In that attitude of waiting he was such a patient figure; the sun glared down and showed the threadbare nature of his clothes and the thinness of his brown hands, with their long forgers and nails yellow from tobacco.  Seeing me he came up the steps again, and raised his hat.

“I am glad to have caught you; please forget all that.”  I asked if he would do me the honour of dining at my hotel.

“Dine?” he repeated with the sort of smile a child gives if you offer him a box of soldiers; “with the greatest pleasure.  I seldom dine out, but I think I can muster up a coat.  Yes—­yes—­and at what time shall I come?  At half-past seven, and your hotel is—?  Good!  I shall be there.  Freda, mia cara, you will be alone this evening.  You do not smoke caporal, I fear.  I find it fairly good; though it has too much bite.”  He walked off with Freda, puffing at his thin roll of caporal.

Once or twice he stopped, as if bewildered or beset by some sudden doubt or memory; and every time he stopped, Freda licked his hand.  They disappeared round the corner of the street, and I went to my hotel to see about dinner.  On the way I met Jules le Ferrier, and asked him to come too.

“My faith, yes!” he said, with the rosy pessimism characteristic of the French editor.  “Man must dine!”

At half-past six we assembled.  My “Cosmopolitan” was in an old frock-coat braided round the edges, buttoned high and tight, defining more than ever the sharp lines of his shoulders and the slight kink of his back; he had brought with him, too, a dark-peaked cap of military shape, which he had evidently selected as more fitting to the coat than a straw hat.  He smelled slightly of some herb.

We sat down to dinner, and did not rise for two hours.  He was a charming guest, praised everything he ate—­not with commonplaces, but in words that made you feel it had given him real pleasure.  At first, whenever Jules made one of his caustic remarks, he looked quite pained, but suddenly seemed to make up his mind that it was bark, not bite; and then at each of them he would turn to me and say, “Aha! that’s good—­isn’t it?” With every glass of wine he became more gentle and more genial, sitting very upright, and tightly buttoned-in; while the little white wings of his moustache seemed about to leave him for a better world.

In spite of the most leading questions, however, we could not get him to talk about himself, for even Jules, most cynical of men, had recognised that he was a hero of romance.  He would answer gently and precisely, and then sit twisting his moustaches, perfectly unconscious that we wanted more.  Presently, as the wine went a little to his head, his thin, high voice grew thinner, his cheeks became flushed, his eyes brighter; at the end of dinner he said:  “I hope I have not been noisy.”