My sudden gentleman was strikingly good-looking, his complexion so clear and boyishly healthy, that, except for his gray hair, he might have passed for twenty-two or twenty-three, and even as it was I guessed his years short of thirty; but there are plenty of handsome young fellows with prematurely gray hair, and, as Amedee said, though out of the world we were near it.  It was the new-comer’s “singular air” which established his identity.  Amedee’s vagueness had irked me, but the thing itself—­the “singular air”—­was not at all vague.  Instantly perceptible, it was an investiture; marked, definite—­and intangible.  My interrogator was “that other monsieur.”

In response to his question I asked him another: 

“Were the roses real or artificial?”

“I don’t know,” he answered, with what I took to be a whimsical assumption of gravity.  “It wouldn’t matter, would it?  Have you seen her?”

He stooped to brush the brambles from his trousers, sending me a sidelong glance from his blue eyes, which were brightly confident and inquiring, like a boy’s.  At the same time it struck me that whatever the nature of the singularity investing him it partook of nothing repellent, but, on the contrary, measurably enhanced his attractiveness; making him “different” and lending him a distinction which, without it, he might have lacked.  And yet, patent as this singularity must have been to the dullest, it was something quite apart from any eccentricity of manner, though, heaven knows, I was soon to think him odd enough.

“Isn’t your description,” I said gravely, thinking to suit my humour to his own, “somewhat too general?  Over yonder a few miles lies Houlgate.  Trouville itself is not so far, and this is the season.  A great many white hats trimmed with roses might come for a stroll in these woods.  If you would complete the items—­” and I waved my hand as if inviting him to continue.

“I have seen her only once before,” he responded promptly, with a seriousness apparently quite genuine.  “That was from my window at an inn, three days ago.  She drove by in an open carriage without looking up, but I could see that she was very handsome.  No—­” he broke off abruptly, but as quickly resumed—­“handsome isn’t just what I mean.  Lovely, I should say.  That is more like her and a better thing to be, shouldn’t you think so?”

“Probably—­yes—­I think so,” I stammered, in considerable amazement.

“She went by quickly,” he said, as if he were talking in the most natural and ordinary way in the world, “but I noticed that while she was in the shade of the inn her hair appeared to be dark, though when the carriage got into the sunlight again it looked fair.”

I had noticed the same thing when the lady who had passed emerged from the shadows of the path into the sunshine of the glade, but I did not speak of it now; partly because he gave me no opportunity, partly because I was almost too astonished to speak at all, for I was no longer under the delusion that he had any humourous or whimsical intention.