"May I speak to you?" leaving the chalk on the wall; so I took up the chalk and wrote back, "No; mother will be angry"; and mother found it, and was angry; and after that we were stricter prisoners than ever. However, "Destiny is stronger than custom." A mother and a pretty daughter came to Boulogne who happened to be cousins of my father's; they joined the majority in the society sense, and one day we were allowed to walk on the Ramparts with them. There I met Richard again, who (agony!) was flirting with the daughter. We were formally introduced, and his name made me start. Like a flash came back to me the prophecy of Hagar Burton which she had told me in the days of my childhood in Stonymoore Wood: "You will cross the sea, and be in the same town with your Destiny and know it not. . . . You will bear the name of our tribe, and be right proud of it." I could think of no more at the moment. But I stole a look at him, and met his gypsy eyes—those eyes which looked you through, glazed over, and saw something behind; the only man I had ever seen, not a gypsy, with that peculiarity. And again I thrilled through and through. He must have thought me very stupid, for I scarcely spoke a word during that brief meeting.
I did not try to attract his attention; but after that, whenever he came on the usual promenade, I would invent any excuse that came ready to take another turn to watch him, if he were not looking. If I could catch the sound of his deep voice, it seemed to me so soft and sweet that I remained spellbound,
