"And now, duchess, let me present to you my first and last and only
love, Mona Lisa." I turned round, and there stood a soldier-like old
gentleman and two ladies (one of whom was the Duchess of Towers),
staring at the picture.

As I made way for them I caught her eye, and in it again, as I felt
sure, a kindly look of recognition--just for half a second. She
evidently recollected having seen me at Lady Cray's, where I had stood
all the evening alone in a rather conspicuous corner. I was so
exceptionally tall (in those days of not such tall people as now) that
it was easy to notice and remember me, especially as I wore my beard,
which it was unusual to do then among Englishmen.

She little guessed how _I_ remembered _her_; she little knew all she was
and had been to me--in life and in a dream!

My emotion was so great that I felt it in my very knees; I could
scarcely walk; I was as weak as water. My worship for the beautiful
stranger was becoming almost a madness. She was even more lovely than
Madame Seraskier. It was cruel to be like that.

It seems that I was fated to fall down and prostrate myself before very
tall, slender women, with dark hair and lily skins and light angelic
eyes. The fair damsel who sold tripe and pigs' feet in Clerkenwell was
also of that type, I remembered; and so was Mrs. Deane. Fortunately for
me it is not a common one!

All that day I spent on quays and bridges, leaning over parapets, and
looking at the Seine, and nursing my sweet despair, and calling myself