Coxeter of the Treasury looked at the man he took to be a
financier with considerable contempt. Coxeter prided himself on his
knowledge of human beings,--or rather of men, for even his
self-satisfaction did not go so far as to make him suppose that he
entirely understood women; there had been a time when he had thought
so, but that was a long while ago. He began reading his newspaper. There was a most interesting article on
education. After having glanced at this, he studied more carefully
various little items of social news which reminded him that he had been
away from London for some weeks. Then, as he read on, the conversation
between Nan Archdale and the man next to her became more audible to him. All the other people in the carriage were French, and so first one, and
then the other, window had been closed. His ears had grown accustomed to the muffled, thundering sounds caused
by the train, and gradually he became aware that Nan Archdale was
receiving some singular confidences from the man with whom she was now
speaking. The fellow was actually unrolling before her the whole of his
not very interesting life, and by degrees Coxeter began rather to
overhear than to listen consciously to what was being said. The Jew, though English by birth, now lived in France. As a young man he
had failed in business in London, and then he had made a fresh start
abroad, apparently impelled thereto by his great affection for his
mother. The Jewish race, so Coxeter reminded himself, are admirable in
every relation of private life, and it was apparently in order that his
mother might not have to alter her style of living that the person on
whom Mrs. Archdale was now fixing her attention had finally accepted a
post in a Paris house of business--no, not financial, something
connected with the sweetmeat trade. Coxeter gathered that the speaker had at last saved enough money to make
a start for himself, and that now he was very prosperous. He spoke of
what he had done with legitimate pride, and when describing the struggle
he had gone through, the fellow used a very odd expression, "It wasn't
all jam!" he said. Now he was in a big way of business, going over to
London every three months, partly in connection with his work, partly to
see his old mother. Behind his newspaper Coxeter told himself that it was amazing any human
being should tell so much of his private concerns to a stranger. Even
more amazing was it that a refined, rather peculiar, woman like Nan
Archdale should care to listen to such a commonplace story. But
listening she was, saying a word here and there, asking, too, very
quaint, practical questions concerning the sweetmeat trade. Why, even
Coxeter became interested in spite of himself, for the Jew was an
intelligent man, and as he talked on Coxeter learned with surprise that
there is a romantic and exciting side even to making sweets. "What a pity it is," he heard Nan say at last in her low, even voice,
"that you can't now come back to England and settle down there. Surely
it would make your mother much happier, and you don't seem to like Paris
so very much?" "That is true," said the man, "but--well, unluckily there's an obstacle
to my doing that----"

Coxeter looked up from his paper. The stranger's face had become
troubled, preoccupied, and his eyes were fixed, or so Coxeter fancied
them to be, on Nan Archdale's left hand, the slender bare hand on which
the only ring was her wedding ring. Coxeter once more returned to his paper, but for some minutes he made no
attempt to follow the dancing lines of print. "I trust you won't be offended if I ask whether you are, or are not, a
married lady?" The sweetmeat man's voice had a curious note of shamed
interrogation threading itself through the words. Coxeter felt surprised and rather shocked. This was what came of
allowing oneself to become familiar with an underbred stranger! But Nan
had apparently not so taken the impertinent question, for, "I am a
widow," Coxeter heard her answer gently, in a voice that had no touch of
offence in it. And then, after a few moments, staring with frowning eyes at the
spread-out sheet of newspaper before him, Coxeter, with increasing
distaste and revolt, became aware that Mrs. Archdale was now receiving
very untoward confidences--confidences which Coxeter had always imagined
were never made save under the unspoken seal of secrecy by one man to
another. This objectionable stranger was telling Nan Archdale the story
of the woman who had seen him off at the station, and whose absurd
phrase, "_Adieu, mon petit homme adoré_," had rung so unpleasantly in
his, Coxeter's, ears. The eavesdropper was well aware that such stories are among the everyday
occurrences of life, but his knowledge was largely theoretical; John
Coxeter was not the sort of man to whom other men are willing to confide
their shames, sorrows, or even successes in a field of which the
aftermath is generally bitter. In as far as such a tale can be told with decent ambiguity it was so
told by this man of whose refinement Coxeter had formed so poor an
opinion, but still the fact that he was telling it remained--and it was
a fact which to such a man as Coxeter constituted an outrage on the
decencies of life. Mrs. Archdale, by her foolish good-nature, had placed herself in such a
position as to be consulted in a case of conscience concerning a Jewish
tradesman and his light o' love, and now the man was debating with her
as with himself, as to whether he should marry this woman, as to whether
he should force on his respectable English mother a French
daughter-in-law of unmentionable antecedents! Coxeter gathered that the
liaison had lasted ten years--that it had begun, in fact, very soon
after the man had first come to Paris. In addition to his feeling of wrath that Nan Archdale should become
cognisant of so sordid a tale, there was associated a feeling of shame
that he, Coxeter, had overheard what it had not been meant that he
should hear. Perforce the story went on to its melancholy and inconclusive end, and
then, suddenly, Coxeter became possessed with a desire to see Nan
Archdale's face. He glanced across at her. To his surprise her face was
expressionless; but her left hand was no longer lying on her knee, it
was supporting her chin, and she was looking straight before her. "I suppose," she said at last, "that you have made a proper provision
for your--your friend? I mean in case of your death. I hope you have so
arranged matters that if anything should happen to you, this poor woman
who loves you would not have to go back to the kind of life from which
you took her." Even Coxeter divined that Nan had not found it easy to
say this thing. "Why, no, I haven't done anything of that sort. I never thought of doing
it; she's always been the delicate party. I am as strong as a horse!" "Still--still, life's very uncertain." Mrs. Archdale was now looking
straight into the face of the stranger on whom she was thrusting
unsought advice.