believe, that your friend shall know your real opinion, for he knows it
mainly when it's unfavourable, and this is especially the case if--let
the solecism pass!--he be a woman. I hadn't followed Mrs. Pallant's
fortunes; the years went by for me in my own country, whereas she led
her life, which I vaguely believed to be difficult after her husband's
death--virtually that of a bankrupt--in foreign lands. I heard of her
from time to time; always as "established" somewhere, but on each
occasion in a different place. She drifted from country to country, and
if she had been of a hard composition at the beginning it could never
occur to me that her struggle with society, as it might be called, would
have softened the paste. Whenever I heard a woman spoken of as "horribly
worldly" I thought immediately of the object of my early passion. I
imagined she had debts, and when I now at last made up my mind to recall
myself to her it was present to me that she might ask me to lend her
money. More than anything else, however, at this time of day, I was
sorry for her, so that such an idea didn't operate as a deterrent.

She pretended afterwards that she hadn't noticed me--expressing as we
stood face to face great surprise and wishing to know where I had
dropped from; but I think the corner of her eye had taken me in and she
had been waiting to see what I would do. She had ended by sitting down
with her girl on the same row of chairs with myself, and after a little,
the seat next to her becoming vacant, I had gone and stood before her.
She had then looked up at me a moment, staring as if she couldn't
imagine who I was or what I wanted; after which, smiling and extending
her hands, she had broken out: "Ah my dear old friend--what a delight!"
If she had waited to see what I would do in order to choose her own line
she thus at least carried out this line with the utmost grace. She was
cordial, friendly, artless, interested, and indeed I'm sure she was very
glad to see me. I may as well say immediately, none the less, that she