"My dear fellow, marriage is not the end of everything. A man still has his duties—his enthusiasms! Everything will go on as I have planned it."
"You said she was an American.... Perhaps she will object to being left...."
"Left?... Why, she will go with me! Remember, I am marrying a wife, and, naturally, a wife does what her husband—"
"Oh, of course, of course! That goes without saying." Stillman laughed disagreeably. "Really, I must be running along. I am tired. I have been riding all night."
"I am afraid my name-day celebration was disturbing," Danilo said, giving Stillman his hand.
"Life is so full of unexpected turns," Stillman ventured as he swung open the door. "I didn't think that your life and my life were touched by the same currents."
"Are they?"
"Remotely ... by the merest chance."
Danilo looked puzzled. "Chance is like a deep pool; you never know what ghastly thing it will yield up."
Stillman narrowed his eyes. He began to remember things. Again he heard the sharp slam of a taxi door, again he felt his cheeks burn as he leaned forward to pick up his hat, again he laid an inquisitive hand upon the shoulder of a slim, beetle-browed figure standing with one finger upon the call-bell of an elevator. And again that figure turned, fixing him with a red-lipped smile.... Yes, at this moment, standing before Danilo, it all came back.