"She has only just got into it," he answers, slightly; "only about a fortnight, that is."
"I wonder," say I, ruminatingly, "what brought her to this part of the world, for she does not seem to know anybody."
He does not answer.
"We ought to be friends, ought not we?" say I, beginning to laugh nervously, and looking appealingly toward him, "both of us coming to sojourn in a strange land! It is a curious coincidence our both settling here in such similar circumstances, at almost the same time, is not it?"
Still he is silent.
"Is not it?" cry I, irritably, raising my voice.
Again he has thrown his head back, and is perusing the sky, his hands clasped round one lifted knee.
"What is a coincidence?" he says, languidly. "I do not think I quite know—I am never good at long words—two things that happen accidentally at the same time, is not it?"
He lays the faintest possible stress on the word accidentally.
"And you mean to say that this in not accidental?" I cry, quickly.