“Of course, that first speech ought to have enlightened me, but it didn’t.  I only saw the smile and heard the voice; I knew nothing of whether they were deep or shallow.  So I found the maid and found the dog.  The first expressed gratitude; the other didn’t.  I extricated him with enormous difficulty from the wreck of the luggage-van, and this was how he marked his appreciation.”  He held out his hand and nodded towards the scar.

Chilcote glanced up.  “So that’s the explanation?”

“Yes.  I tried to conceal the thing when I restored the dog, but I was bleeding abominably and I failed.  Then the whole business was changed.  It was I who needed seeing to, my new friend insisted; I who should be looked after, and not she.  She forgot the dog in the newer interest of my wounded finger.  The maid, who was practically unhurt, was sent on to engage rooms at the little inn, and she and I followed slowly.

“That walk impressed me.  There was an attractive mistiness of atmosphere in the warm night, a sensation more than attractive in being made much of by a woman of one’s own class and country after five years’ wandering.”  He laughed with a touch of irony.  “But I won’t take up your time with details.  You know the progress of an ordinary love affair.  Throw in a few more flowers and a little more sunshine than is usual, a man who is practically a hermit and a woman who knows the world by heart, and you have the whole thing.

“She insisted on staying in Santasalare for three days in order to keep my finger bandaged; she ended by staying three weeks in the hope of smashing up my life.

“On coming to the hotel she had given no name; and in our first explanations to each other she led me to conclude her an unmarried girl.  It was at the end of the three weeks that I learned that she was not a free agent, as I had innocently imagined, but possessed a husband whom she had left ill with malaria at Florence or Rome.

“The news disconcerted me, and I took no pains to hide it.  After that the end came abruptly.  In her eyes I had become a fool with middle-class principles; in my eyes—­But there is no need for that.  She left Santasalare the same night in a great confusion of trunks and hat-boxes; and next morning I strapped on my knapsack and turned my face to the south.”

“And women don’t count ever after?” Chilcote smiled, beguiled out of himself.

Loder laughed.  “That’s what I’ve been trying to convey.  Once bitten, twice shy!” He laughed again and slipped the two rings over his finger with an air of finality.

“Now, shall I start?  This is the latch-key?” He drew a key from the pocket of Chilcote’s evening-clothes.  “When I get to Grosvenor Square I am to find your house, go straight in, mount the stairs, and there on my right hand will be the door of your—­I mean my own—­private rooms.  I think I’ve got it all by heart.  I feel inspired; I feel that I can’t go wrong.”  He handed the two remaining rings to Chilcote and picked up the overcoat.