"There was an iron bench at the edge of the screen of roses, and hardly knowing what I did,—for it was not the right thing to do in another person's place—I sat down on this bench, taking pleasure in the sight of the moat and the house with its noble roof, and the noise of the fountain. I think I should have gone to sleep there and at that moment—for I felt upon me worse than ever the strain of that long hot morning and that long night journey—had not a very curious thing happened."
Here the man looked up at me oddly, as though to see whether I disbelieved him or not; but I did not disbelieve him.
I was not even very much interested, for I was trying to make the trees to look different one from the other, which is an extremely difficult thing: I had not succeeded and I was niggling away. He continued with more assurance:
"The thing that happened was this: a young girl came out of the house dressed in white, with a blue scarf over her head and crossed round her neck. I knew her face as well as possible: it was a face I had known all my youth and early manhood—but for the life of me I could not remember her name!'
"When one is very tired," I said, "that does happen to one: a name one knows as well as one's own escapes one. It is especially the effect of lack of sleep."
"It is," said he, sighing profoundly; "but the oddness of my feeling it is impossible to describe, for there I was meeting the oldest and perhaps the dearest and certainly the most familiar of my friends, whom," he added, hesitating a moment, "I had not seen for many years. It was a very great pleasure … it was a sort of comfort and an ending. I forgot, the moment I saw her, why I had come over the hills, and all about how I meant to get to Chartres…. And now I must tell you," added the man a little awkwardly, "that my name is Peter."
"No doubt," said I gravely, for I could not see why he should not bear that name.
"My Christian name," he continued hurriedly.
"Of course," said I, as sympathetically as I could. He seemed relieved that I had not even smiled at it.
"Yes," he went on rather quickly, "Peter—my name is Peter. Well, this lady came up to me and said, 'Why, Peter, we never thought you would come!' She did not seem very much astonished, but rather as though I had come earlier than she had expected. 'I will get Philip,' she said. 'You remember Philip?' Here I had another little trouble with my memory: I did remember that there was a Philip, but I could not place him. That was odd, you know. As for her, oh, I knew her as well as the colour of the sky: it was her name that my brain missed, as it might have missed my own name or my mother's.