"But where can we meet?" I cried. "I don't come often to this
house, you know."

"Where? Why on the Cannebiere to be sure. Everybody meets
everybody else at least once a day on the pavement opposite the
Bourse."

This was absolutely true. But though I looked for him on each
succeeding day he was nowhere to be seen at the usual times. The
companions of my idle hours (and all my hours were idle just then)
noticed my preoccupation and chaffed me about it in a rather
obvious way. They wanted to know whether she, whom I expected to
see, was dark or fair; whether that fascination which kept me on
tenterhooks of expectation was one of my aristocrats or one of my
marine beauties: for they knew I had a footing in both these--
shall we say circles? As to themselves they were the bohemian
circle, not very wide--half a dozen of us led by a sculptor whom we
called Prax for short. My own nick-name was "Young Ulysses."

I liked it.

But chaff or no chaff they would have been surprised to see me
leave them for the burly and sympathetic Mills. I was ready to
drop any easy company of equals to approach that interesting man
with every mental deference. It was not precisely because of that
shipwreck. He attracted and interested me the more because he was
not to be seen. The fear that he might have departed suddenly for
England--(or for Spain)--caused me a sort of ridiculous depression
as though I had missed a unique opportunity. And it was a joyful
reaction which emboldened me to signal to him with a raised arm