VI
She admitted this with such a directness, such an air, that I quite flushed and felt ill at ease. Whatever was passing in that childish-looking head, behind that face so provoking, so rebellious? What signified her decided moral attitude, her frank and, possibly, honest eye, her sensuous mouth that seemed to tempt and yet defy. All that I really knew was that she pleased me vastly, that I was enchanted to have found her again, and looked forward to finding other chances of being with her. We reached her home. Down-stairs at the doorway I bought her some mandarines. At the top floor she gave three little knocks at a door and I stood before her mother, a dark woman, who had once been beautiful.
Then began confidences; they seemed endless. The mother said she was the widow of an engineer
