What he actually did was neither to go up to her nor to tell her about the projected visit. He rose to his feet, and said abruptly: “Well! What about lunch, my dear?”

At this remark she lifted up her head from her arm with a jerk, dropped her hand to her side, and, giving him one quick look of unspeakable reproach, went out without a word into the kitchen.

“Damn!” he thought to himself. “She can’t be a witch! She can’t have the power to read a person’s thoughts! Besides, what did I think? Nothing beyond what everyone thinks sometimes; wild, crazy, outrageous nonsense! It must be her mother. That old trot must have come round, after all.”

He resumed his seat in the wicker-chair; but he felt too miserable even to light a cigarette.