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later (George went on), Livia exclaimed suddenly, during a rather trivial quarrel: “That Frenchman sized you up all right— he said I oughtn’t ever to have married you!” More startled than angry, George then asked for an explanation. She wouldn’t give any at first, but on being pressed said that during the few minutes he had left her alone in the train with the stranger, the latter had made her an ardent profession of love and had actually implored her to run off with him.
    When George reached this point in the story he commented rather naïvely: “I suppose that could happen, with a Frenchman, even though he’d only set eyes on her a few hours before.”
    “Perhaps in that particular way he was unbalanced.”
    “No—or at least there wasn’t much other evidence of it. You see, having once got interested in the man, I’d found out a few things about him and followed his career. He’d been married and raised a family long before his meeting with us, and recently he’s become fairly well known as one of the financial experts to the Peace Conference. You’d recognize the name if I told you, but I don’t think that would be quite fair because a few months ago he and his wife came to London on some official mission, and there were photographs of them in the papers looking as if they’d both had a lifetime of happiness.”
    “Maybe they had.”
    A sudden commotion of door banging and engine whistling drowned George’s reply and caused him to repeat, more loudly: “I shouldn’t wonder.”
    “There’s one other thing that occurs to me, Boswell, if you’ll forgive my mentioning it—”
    “Of course—”
    “ How do you know the incident really happened ?”
    The train began to move and George walked with it for a few seconds, hastily pondering before he answered: “Aye…I can see what you mean…Funny—I hadn’t ever thought of that. And yet I should have, I know.” His walk accelerated to a scamper; there was now only time to wave and call out: “Good-bye…see you tomorrow…Good-bye….”
    When the train had left he stood for a moment as if watching it out of sight, but actually watching nothing, seeing nothing. A porter wheeling a truck along the platform halted and half-turned. “’Night, George.”
    “Good night,” responded George mechanically, then pulled himself together and walked down the ramp to the station yard.
    He felt he must at all costs avoid the main streets where people would stop him with congratulations on the success of the day’s events. There was a footpath skirting the edge of the town that meant an extra half-mile but led unobtrusively towards the far end of Market Street. Nobody went this way at night except lovers seeking darkness, and darkness alone obscured the ugliness of the scene—a cindery wasteland between town and countryside and possessing the amenities of neither; it had long been a dream of his to beautify the whole area with shrubs and lawns, to provide the youth of Browdley with a more fitting background for its romance. But Browdley youth seemed not to care, while those in Browdley who were no longer youthful objected to the cost. Perhaps for the first time in his adult life George now traversed the wasteland without reflecting ruefully upon its continued existence; he had far more exacting thoughts to assemble, and in truth he hardly knew where he was. The day that had begun so well was ending in trouble whose magnitude he had only just begun to explore, and with every further step came the deepening of a pain that touched him physically as well as in every other way, so that he felt sick and ill as he stumbled along. He was appalled by the realization that Livia still had such power to hurt him.
    Somberly he reached his house and, as he entered it, suddenly felt alone. Which made him think; for he had been just as alone ever since Livia had left six months before; and if he had not felt it so much, that proved how hopefully, in his heart, he had