Two Studies
I—At the Cross Roads
"For to no man is it given to understand a woman, nor to any woman to understand a man."
THE boat from Dieppe had just arrived, and the passengers were pushing from the decks on to the quay. A tall woman, wrapped in a handsome mantle trimmed with sables, waited for her turn to cross the gangway. Her eyes, wandering restlessly over the little crowd of spectators that had assembled to watch for the arrival of the boat, met those of a man who pressed into the throng towards her. She started, and a sudden flush, beautiful but transitory, touched her face into a youthfulness which it did not otherwise possess. The man took off his hat in salute, and, holding it above his head, thrust forward to the foot of the gangway. He kept his eyes fastened upon her face; and the expression of his own, in spite of the smile on his lips, was doubtful and anxious. She returned his look gravely, yet with a certain tenderness in her glance. Beckoning to the maid who followed her, she slipped adroitly before a party of staggering sea-sick tourists, and made her way on to the quay.
