--he possessed her--she lived under his roof--she was always
waiting for him in his study. She is real to you? She was
inexpressibly, miraculously real to him. He saw her, knew her,
felt her, realised her, in every detail of her mind, her soul,
her person--down to the very intonations of her speech--down to
the veins in her hands, the rings on her fingers--down to her
very furs and laces, the frou-frou of her skirts, the scent
upon her pocket-handkerchief. He had numbered the hairs of her
head, almost."

Again the Duchessa mused for a while in silence, opening and
shutting her fan, and gazing into its opals.

"I am thinking of it from the woman's point of view," she said,
by and by. "To have played such a part in a man's life--and
never to have dreamed it! Never even, very likely, to have
dreamed that such a man existed--for it's entirely possible she
didn't notice him, on those occasions when he saw her. And to
have been the subject of such a novel--and never to have
dreamed that, either! To have read the novel perhaps--without
dreaming for an instant that there was any sort of connection
between Pauline and herself! Or else--what would almost be
stranger still--not to have read the novel, not to have heard
of it! To have inspired such a book, such a beautiful book
--yet to remain in sheer unconscious ignorance that there was
such a book! Oh, I think it is even more extraordinary from
the woman's point of view than from the man's. There is
something almost terrifying about it. To have had such an
influence on the destiny of someone you've never heard of!
There's a kind of intangible sense of a responsibility."