ECORD of an episode taken from my journal, and written upon the evening following my first meeting with the General:
“This afternoon I decide to go to the Temple and see Dick Shafthead. We shall dine together quietly, and I shall vent what is left of my humors and be refreshed by his good-humored raillery. The afternoon is fading into evening as I mount his stairs; the lamps are being lit; by this hour he should have returned. But no; I knock and knock again, and get no answer.
“'Well,' I say to myself, 'he cannot be long. I shall wait for him outside.'
“I descend again to wait in that quiet and soothing court, where the fountain plays and the goldfish swim and the autumn leaves tremble overhead. Now and then one of these drops stealthily upon the pavement; the pigeons flit by, settle, fly off again; people pass occasionally; but at first that is all that happens. At last there enters a woman, who does not pass through, but loiters on the farther side of the fountain as though she were meditating—or waiting for somebody. So far as I can judge in the half-light and at a little distance, she is young, and her outline is attractive; therefore I conclude she is not meditating.
“She does not see me, but I should like to see more of her. I walk round the fountain and come up behind her. She hears my step, turns sharply, and approaches, evidently prepared to greet me. Words are on the tip of her tongue, when abruptly she starts back. She does not know me, after all. But quickly, before she has time to recover herself, I raise my hat and say:
“'I cannot be mistaken. We have met at the bishop's?'”
