“He is very unlike me. He is the doyen, perhaps, of Lotharios.”
“An old man?”
“Yes, old.”
“And you travel like a commis voyageur—for experience, says the gross Van Roon! There must be something of courage in you Englishmen, after all, though you will run before us where you are fewer than ten to one.”
Ned changed the subject.
“Why were you so hurt last night by my reference to Nicette?”
“She is a saint.”
“How do you know?”
“How does a blind man know when some one sits at an open window by which he passes? He feels the presence—that is all.”
“That is all, then?”