"But of the girl he could tell me nothing, and it was of the girl I wished to hear. Grünbaum would not have noticed her. His own divagations, his emotional odyssies, his mistresses, would be dim memories now, and he would not have noticed her. And as young Siddons gradually developed an air of gentle and resigned melancholy, one of those moods which are the aromatic cerements of a dead love, I discovered in myself an increasingly active desire to know what had happened to her. Because I didn't even know for certain whether she had married M. Nikitos. And when we got home once more and young Siddons bade us farewell to go up to sit for his examination, I was disappointed that, as far as I could see, the longing I had to follow the Macedoines in their strange career was not to be gratified. But this so often happens in my life that I am grown resigned. We sailed again, for Venice this time, and I admit that among the canals and palaces, with the extraordinary moods which that fair city evokes, I found my thoughts retiring from Ipsilon. We went to Spain to load that voyage, moreover, and that brought its own sheaf of alien impressions. Loaded in Cartagena, and in due course arrived at our old berth in the Queens Dock. All that is of no moment just now. What I was going to say was that I found among my few letters on arrival an envelope, addressed in an unfamiliar hand and with the crest of a great London hotel on the back. I opened it with only mild curiosity, saw it was addressed to 'Dear Mr. Chief,' and turning the page, saw it was signed 'A. M.'
"Yes, it was from her. It was a short, hurried scrawl in a rambling yet firm style, the down strokes heavy and black, half a dozen lines to the sheet. She wanted to see me. I turned it over and saw the date on the envelope was a week old. She wanted to see me if I was able to come to London. I was to ask for Madame Kinaitsky. She would be in London for two or three weeks. She did hope I could come. She had found out from the Company that the _Manola_ was due soon. And she was 'mine very sincerely.'
"I admit I was, as they say, intrigued. I had given up all hope of hearing any more of her. And I was astonished. She was in London! I was to ask for Madame Kinaitsky. Was she married then, after all? I told Jack I had to go to London on family business, and took train that night, wiring to her that I would see her next day. I needed a spell from the ship, anyhow.