"So he is, poor old boy! I hadn't noticed."
"Then—adieu, Monsieur. And thanks again."
He drove back to town. "I shall never get to Aix," he thought. "Perhaps I shouldn't go.... Some fate...." At the livery post he got down and examined the horse's fetlock.
"So you won several races, eh?" But the white horse seemed to shake its head. "No! Oh, well, no matter, old codger!" And he stroked the long lugubrious muzzle....
And thus, casually as he would light a match for his cigarette, casually as he would stumble over something, casually as he would pick up a book, he met La Mielleuse on the road to Aix....
§ 4
For days now he had been aware of her presence in Marseilles without thinking of her—aware of her as he was aware of the Hôtel de Ville, or of the Consigne, as of the obelisk in the Place Castellane. These things were facts, had their place, and she was a fact. She had become imprinted on his memory as on a sensitive plate. So one dusk on the Prado, as he met her, he was no more surprised than if, in their appointed places he had come across the obelisk or the Consigne or the Hôtel de Ville.
She was standing looking out to sea, and the little wind from Africa blew against her, and made her seem poised for flight, like a bird.
And because he saw no reason why he shouldn't and because he was direct and simple as the sea itself, he went to her.
"Are you a sea-captain's wife?"