The woman? Why do I say it? She was never a woman--she was a girl--
far, far transcendent. It was the first time I had ever seen her--
standing there before the door. I had never beheld such beauty,
such profile, poise--the witching, laughing, night-black of her
eyes; the perfectly bridged nose and the red, red lips that
smiled, it seemed to me, in sadness. She hesitated, and as if
puzzled, lifted a jewelled hand to her raven mass of hair. To this
minute I cannot account for my action, unless, perchance, it was
the ring. Perhaps it was. Anyway I had risen.

How well do I remember.

It seemed to me that I had known her a long, long time. There was
something about her that was not seduction; but far, far above it.
Somewhere I had seen her, had known her. She was looking and she
was waiting for me. There was something about her that was super
feminine. I thought it then, and I say it now.

Just then her glance came my way. She smiled, and nodded; there
was a note of sadness in her voice.

"Harry Wendel!"

There is no accounting for my action, nor my wonder; she knew me.
Then it was true! I was not mistaken! Somewhere I had seen her. I
felt a vague and dim rush of dreamy recollections. Ah, that was
the answer! She was a girl of dreams and phantoms. Even then I
knew it; she was not a woman; not as we conceive her; she was some
materialisation out of Heaven. Why do I talk so? Ah! this strange
beauty that is woman! From the very first she held me in the