I said nothing:  but all the same I am tolerably certain that Judith, being Judith, will enjoy prodigious merrymaking in Paris.  She is absolutely sincere in her intentions—­the earth holds no sincerer woman—­but she is a self-deceiver.  Her about-to-be-sequestered and meditative self was at that moment sitting on the arm of a chair and smoking a cigarette, with undisguised relish of the good things of this life.  The blue smoke wreathing itself amid her fair hair resembled, so I told her in the relaxed intellectual frame of mind of the contented man, incense mounting through the nimbus of a saint.  She affected solicitude lest the life-blood of my intelligence should be pouring out through my cut finger.  No, I am convinced that the recueillement (that beautiful French word for which we have no English equivalent, meaning the gathering of the soul together within itself) of the rue Boissy d’Anglais is the very happiest delusion wherewith Judith has hitherto deluded herself.  I am glad, exceedingly glad.  Her temperament—­I have got reconciled to her affliction—­craves the gaiety which London denies her.

“And when are you going?” I asked.

“To-morrow.”

“To-morrow?”

“Why not?  I wired Delphine this morning.  I had to go out to get something for lunch " (my conviction, it appears, was right), “and I thought I might as well take an omnibus to Charing Cross and send a telegram.”

“But when are you going to pack?”

“I did that last night.  I didn’t get to bed till four this morning.  I only made up my mind after you had gone,” she added, in anticipation of a possible question.

It is better that we are not married.  These sudden resolutions would throw my existence out of gear.  My moral upheaval would be that of a hen in front of a motor-car.  When I go abroad, I like at least a fortnight to think of it.  One has to attune one’s mind to new conditions, to map out the pleasant scheme of days, to savour in anticipation the delights that stand there, awaiting one’s tasting, either in the mystery of the unknown or in the welcoming light of familiarity.  I love the transition that can be so subtly gradated by the spirit between one scene and another.  The man who awakens one fine morning in his London residence, scratches his head, and says, “What shall I do to-day?  By Jove!  I’ll start for Timbuctoo!” is to me an incomprehensible, incomplete being.  He lacks an aesthetic sense.

I did not dare tell Judith she lacked an aesthetic sense.  I might just as well have accused her of stealing silver spoons.  I said I should miss her (which I certainly shall), and promised to write to her once a week.

“And you,” said I, “will have heaps of time to write me the History of a Sequestered and Meditative Self—­meanwhile, let us go out somewhere and dine.”

When I got home, I found a card on my hall-table.  “Mr. Sebastian Pasquale.”