When, however, they reached the little table under the tree,
the apparently immovable young lady had moved away after all,
and it was some time before they came upon the track of her.
She had risen, though languidly, and wandered slowly along
the upper path of the terraced garden looking down on the lower
path where it ran closer to the main bulk of the little wood
by the sea.

Her languor was not a feebleness but rather a fullness of life,
like that of a child half awake; she seemed to stretch
herself and enjoy everything without noticing anything.
She passed the wood, into the gray huddle of which a single
white path vanished through a black hole. Along this part
of the terrace ran something like a low rampart or balustrade,
embowered with flowers at intervals; and she leaned over it,
looking down at another glimpse of the glowing sea behind
the clump of trees, and on another irregular path tumbling
down to the pier and the boatman's cottage on the beach.

As she gazed, sleepily enough, she saw that a strange figure
was very actively climbing the path, apparently coming from
the fisherman's cottage; so actively that a moment afterwards it
came out between the trees and stood upon the path just below her.
It was not only a figure strange to her, but one somewhat strange
in itself. It was that of a man still young, and seeming somehow
younger than his own clothes, which were not only shabby but antiquated;
clothes common enough in texture, yet carried in an uncommon fashion.
He wore what was presumably a light waterproof, perhaps through having
come off the sea; but it was held at the throat by one button,