And, indeed, the onion soup was particularly excellent that day,
because he saw another cover laid at his small table and, with
fluttering heart, heard the waiter murmur by way of explanation that
“Ma’mselle Ilsé would honour M’sieur to-day at _déjeuner_, as her
custom sometimes is with her mother’s guests.”

So actually she sat by him all through that delirious meal, talking
quietly to him in easy French, seeing that he was well looked after,
mixing the salad-dressing, and even helping him with her own hand. And, later in the afternoon, while he was smoking in the courtyard,
longing for a sight of her as soon as her duties were done, she came
again to his side, and when he rose to meet her, she stood facing him a
moment, full of a perplexing sweet shyness before she spoke--

“My mother thinks you ought to know more of the beauties of our little
town, and _I_ think so too! Would M’sieur like me to be his guide,
perhaps? I can show him everything, for our family has lived here for
many generations.”

She had him by the hand, indeed, before he could find a single word
to express his pleasure, and led him, all unresisting, out into the
street, yet in such a way that it seemed perfectly natural she should
do so, and without the faintest suggestion of boldness or immodesty. Her face glowed with the pleasure and interest of it, and with her
short dress and tumbled hair she looked every bit the charming child of
seventeen that she was, innocent and playful, proud of her native town,
and alive beyond her years to the sense of its ancient beauty. So they went over the town together, and she showed him what she
considered its chief interest: the tumble-down old house where her
forebears had lived; the sombre, aristocratic-looking mansion where her
mother’s family dwelt for centuries, and the ancient market-place where
several hundred years before the witches had been burnt by the score. She kept up a lively running stream of talk about it all, of which he
understood not a fiftieth part as he trudged along by her side, cursing
his forty-five years and feeling all the yearnings of his early manhood
revive and jeer at him. And, as she talked, England and Surbiton
seemed very far away indeed, almost in another age of the world’s
history. Her voice touched something immeasurably old in him, something
that slept deep. It lulled the surface parts of his consciousness to
sleep, allowing what was far more ancient to awaken. Like the town,
with its elaborate pretence of modern active life, the upper layers
of his being became dulled, soothed, muffled, and what lay underneath
began to stir in its sleep. That big Curtain swayed a little to and
fro. Presently it might lift altogether.... He began to understand a little better at last. The mood of the town
was reproducing itself in him. In proportion as his ordinary external
self became muffled, that inner secret life, that was far more real and
vital, asserted itself. And this girl was surely the high-priestess of
it all, the chief instrument of its accomplishment. New thoughts, with
new interpretations, flooded his mind as she walked beside him through
the winding streets, while the picturesque old gabled town, softly
coloured in the sunset, had never appeared to him so wholly wonderful
and seductive. And only one curious incident came to disturb and puzzle him, slight
in itself, but utterly inexplicable, bringing white terror into the
child’s face and a scream to her laughing lips. He had merely pointed
to a column of blue smoke that rose from the burning autumn leaves
and made a picture against the red roofs, and had then run to the
wall and called her to his side to watch the flames shooting here and
there through the heap of rubbish. Yet, at the sight of it, as though
taken by surprise, her face had altered dreadfully, and she had turned
and run like the wind, calling out wild sentences to him as she ran,
of which he had not understood a single word, except that the fire
apparently frightened her, and she wanted to get quickly away from it,
and to get him away too. Yet five minutes later she was as calm and happy again as though
nothing had happened to alarm or waken troubled thoughts in her, and
they had both forgotten the incident. They were leaning over the ruined ramparts together listening to
the weird music of the band as he had heard it the first day of his
arrival. It moved him again profoundly as it had done before, and
somehow he managed to find his tongue and his best French. The girl
leaned across the stones close beside him. No one was about. Driven by
some remorseless engine within he began to stammer something--he hardly
knew what--of his strange admiration for her. Almost at the first word
she sprang lightly off the wall and came up smiling in front of him,
just touching his knees as he sat there. She was hatless as usual, and
the sun caught her hair and one side of her cheek and throat. “Oh, I’m _so_ glad!” she cried, clapping her little hands softly in his
face, “so very glad, because that means that if you like me you must
also like what I do, and what I belong to.”

Already he regretted bitterly having lost control of himself. Something
in the phrasing of her sentence chilled him. He knew the fear of
embarking upon an unknown and dangerous sea. “You will take part in our real life, I mean,” she added softly,
with an indescribable coaxing of manner, as though she noticed his
shrinking. “You will come back to us.”

Already this slip of a child seemed to dominate him; he felt her power
coming over him more and more; something emanated from her that stole
over his senses and made him aware that her personality, for all its
simple grace, held forces that were stately, imposing, august. He saw
her again moving through smoke and flame amid broken and tempestuous
scenery, alarmingly strong, her terrible mother by her side. Dimly this
shone through her smile and appearance of charming innocence. “You will, I know,” she repeated, holding him with her eyes. They were quite alone up there on the ramparts, and the sensation that
she was overmastering him stirred a wild sensuousness in his blood. The
mingled abandon and reserve in her attracted him furiously, and all of
him that was man rose up and resisted the creeping influence, at the
same time acclaiming it with the full delight of his forgotten youth. An irresistible desire came to him to question her, to summon what
still remained to him of his own little personality in an effort to
retain the right to his normal self. The girl had grown quiet again, and was now leaning on the broad wall
close beside him, gazing out across the darkening plain, her elbows on
the coping, motionless as a figure carved in stone. He took his courage
in both hands. “Tell me, Ilsé,” he said, unconsciously imitating her own purring
softness of voice, yet aware that he was utterly in earnest, “what is
the meaning of this town, and what is this real life you speak of?