his marriage was public or private.

He lit a cigarette gaily. He could not guess that untoward destiny was
waiting for him close by the newspaper kiosque.

A little girl was leaning against the palisade there, and gazing
somewhat restlessly about her. A quite little girl, aged, perhaps,
eleven, dressed in blue serge, with a short frock and long legs, and a
sailor hat (H.M.S. _Formidable_), and long hair down her back, and a
mild, twinkling, trustful glance. Somewhat untidy, but nevertheless the
image of grace.

She saw him first. Otherwise he might have fled. But he was right upon
her before he saw her. Indeed, he heard her before he saw her.

"Good afternoon, Mr Coe."

"Mimi!"

The Vaillacs were in Brighton! He had chosen practically the other end
of the world for his honeymoon, and lo! by some awful clumsiness of fate
the Vaillacs were at the same end! The very people from whom he wished
to conceal his honeymoon until it was over would know all about it at
the very start! Relations between the two Olives would be still more
strained and difficult! In brief, from optimism he swung violently back
to darkest pessimism. What could be worse than to be caught red-handed
in a surreptitious honeymoon?

She noticed his confusion, and he knew that she noticed it. She was a
little girl. But she was also a little woman, a little Frenchwoman, who